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MaisonBisson

a bunch of stuff I would have emailed you about

What’s So Great About Adium?

Brian Mann calls Adium “one of the best multi-network [IM] clients ever.” Tim Bray says it has a “wonderful user interface,” while also naming IM generally “an essential business tool.” Eric Meyer, meanwhile, exclaims “Adium is my new chat buddy.”

What’s so great about Adium? Gaim is the engine behind the scenes, but the face of the application is XHTML and CSS. Wit Meyer:

The entirety of an Adium chat window is an XHTML document that’s being dynamically updated via DOM scripting—all of it pumped through WebKit, of course. In creating a message theme, you define what markup will be used, and write CSS to style it. You can even define variants on your theme by writing additional style sheets.

So with all that, how can I not look at it?

ISBN1013 API Followup

A couple questions about my API to convert 10 digit ISBNs to 13 digits pointed out somethings I failed to mention earlier. First, the API actually works both ways. That is, it identifies and validates both 10 and 13 digit ISBNs on input, and returns both versions in the output. Example: 0811822842 and 978081182284-8. And, […] » about 200 words

My Own Garlitz

<a href="http://chromenos.blogspot.com/" title="chromenos">Bob Garlitz</a> dropped by with a couple canvases yesterday -- <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/maisonbisson/260062748/" title="untitled on Flickr - Photo Sharing!">untitled</a> and <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/maisonbisson/260062725/" title="teng on Flickr - Photo Sharing!">teng</a>. It's an honor I'd appreciate even if I wasn't looking for something to cover my bare office walls. » about 100 words

Converting Between ISBN-10 and ISBN-13

David Kane asked the web4libbers:

Can anyone tell me what the conversion between ISBN-10 and ISBN-13 is, please. I need to write a little conversion program. Anything in PHP, for example.

Answers:

“There is already an online converter: http://www.isbn.org/converterpub.asp;” some pointing at Wikipedia on ISBNs, Bookland, and EANs; John Blyberg’s PHP port of the PERL ISBN-10/13 tool; some explanation that you have to watch the check digit, and discussion about why you’d need to do all this conversion.

Finally, Tim asked:

Someone should offer single and batch converstion as a free API, not an online form and an offer to have a “representive” call you for larger jobs.

Does anyone want that, or shall I?

And I answered:

http://api.wpopac.net/v1/isbn1013/0811822842 changed: http://api.scriblio.net/v01a/isbn1013/0811822842

Same usage as xISBN and thingISBN. Returns empty result on invalid ISBNs.

Based on Blyberg’s code, incorporates some changes, may not be accurate. Poke at it, break it. Report findings, but don’t blame me if it returns incorrect results (I will try to fix the code/service, though).

Geeky extra: anybody know the Lat and Lon to Bookland? I’d really like to put this post on the map.

Beat Box Bush and DJ Cheney

Bush speech mashups rock. From Google Video:

So, you wanna learn how to beatbox? GWB is back with another amazing performance. Surprisingly he is actually very good.

Previously: State of the Union? Not good.

Also, note the tags on that video, and the way somebody snuck “????? ??? ? ???” past the filters.

Teddy Bear Cries Red Tears

southtyrolean, who seems to take an interest in found graffiti posted this one (from Graz)to his Flickr stream, describing it: in the Sackstraße, near Kastner&Öhler (entrance to the car park for bikes) :: in der Sackstraße, neben Kastner&Öhler (Eingang zum Fahrrad-Abstellplatz) I especially like this one. blood tears, boots, graffiti, Graffiti Girl, graz, panties, red […] » about 100 words

“This Would Make A Really Great Blog Post…”

A <a href="http://xkcd.com/c77.html">comic from XKCD</a>: <blockquote>“I feel like I'm wasting my life on the internet. Let's walk around the world.” “Sounds good.” [panels showing the world's great beauty, a truly grand adventure] “And yet all I can think of is 'this will make for a great Livejournal entry.'”</blockquote> » about 100 words

Rocking Wirelessly: Verizon’s V640 EVDO Card

After <a href="http://maisonbisson.com/blog/post/11012/">vacillating for a while</a> (and <a href="http://maisonbisson.com/blog/post/11418/">waiting for it to become available</a>), I finally purchased one of the <a href="http://www.verizonwireless.com:80/b2c/store/controller?item=phoneFirst&action=viewPhoneDetail&selectedPhoneId=2407">Verizon</a> / <a href="http://www.macsimumnews.com/index.php/archive/novatel_v640_expresscard_34_solution_works_with_macbook_pros/">Novatel V640</a> <a href="http://www.expresscard.org/web/site/qa.jsp#01">Express Card</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EVDO">EVDO</a> adapters that <a href="http://raibledesigns.com/page/rd?entry=evdo_express_cards_for_macbook">everybody's talking about</a> for my <img border=0 width=1 height=1 src="http://ad.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/show?id=XfFSogqWv7s&bids=77305&type=2&subid=0" /><a href="http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=XfFSogqWv7s&offerid=77305.118&type=2&subid=0">MacBook Pro</a>. » about 300 words

Should Universities Host Faculty or Student Blogs? (part 1: examples and fear)

| <a href="http://dcfischer.blogs.plymouth.edu/">Our CIO</a> is asking whether or not <a href="http://www.plymouth.edu/">Plymouth</a> should get <a href="http://blogs.plymouth.edu/">involved with blogs</a>. Not to be overly academic, but I think we should define our terms. Despite all the talk, “blogs” are a content agnostic technology being used to support all manner of online activities. <a href="http://dcfischer.blogs.plymouth.edu/2006/09/20/should-psu-host-blogs/">What you're really asking is instead</a>: what kind of content do we want to put online, and who do we want to let do it? » about 700 words

Library Camp East 2006

LCE2006 was a success. Let me quickly join with the other participants to offer my appreciation to John Blyberg and Alan Grey for all their work planning the event, as well as Darien Public Library director Louise Berry and the rest of the library for hosting the event.

Side note: Darien is a beautiful town, but we all have to learn to pronounce the name like a local.

Michael Golrick and John Blyberg each have a number of photos on Flickr, and I’m jealous of those like Lichen Rancourt who can live-blog events like this. I’m still digesting what I learned, but at least I can wash it down with a sip from my new LCE mug.

Further discussion will continue, as always, in the blogosphere, in the L2 Wiki, and just about anywhere else librarians gather.

In addition to all that material, let me offer some screenshots and notes from my short preface to the discussion about OPACs. (And, I hope my words were clearer than the pictures snapped of me at the time — vis: one and two).

Scotchtober Fest

New Hampshire’s Highland Games are back where they belong in Lincoln NH. Fittingly for the Highlands theme, the weather Saturday was cold and misty, with fogs rolling over the hills. I half expected Lorna Doone herself to appear. The games, of course, are “Scottish Heavy Athletics” involving the throwing (though sometimes carrying) of just about […] » about 300 words

wp ssl

one wonders why ssl support isn’t built-in to wp. until then, this noctis.de post offers some tips.

Casey Bisson

It Be Talk Like A Pirate Day, Matey

Hop to it, dogs. Peer an eye at thar video and argue not w’the cap’n:

Tuesday September 19th 2006 is Talk Like a Pirate Day! Talk Like a Pirate Day only comes once a year (on September 19th), this year it falls on a Tuesday. If you’re not ready yet, you can learn more about this international holiday on the About TLAPD page or practice some phrases from the PiratePhrases page. After all, you don’t want to be handed the BlackSpot when the holiday is over!

Our Responsibility: Teach Our Children How To Talk Like A Pirate Early For Future Success

There’s no question that the video mentioned this morning is valuable resource for all of us, but our responsibility to our nation’s future demands more. The good folks at Cook Memorial Library in Tamworth NH are an example to us all with their series of instructional sessions in preparation for Talk Like A Pirate Day. […] » about 600 words

Microsoft Vs. Bloggers In Accusations of MSN Spaces Censorship

I’ve been citing pieces of branding consultant james Torio‘s master’s thesis for some time now. But because the thesis is long, and I want to cite a few small pieces, and those pieces aren’t directly URL addressable, I’m quoting them here. Clickable URLs are added, but everything else should be exactly as Torio wrote it. […] » about 1000 words

PHP Array To XML

I needed a quick, perhaps even sloppy way to output an array as XML. Some Googling turned up a few tools, including Simon Willison’s XmlWriter, Johnny Brochard’s Array 2 XML, Roger Veciana Associative array to XML, and Gijs van Tulder’s Array to XML. Finally, Gijs also pointed me to the XML_Serializer PEAR Package.

In an example of how even the smallest barriers can turn people away, I completely ignored the two possible solutions at PHP Classes, because navigating and using the site sucks. I passed on Willison’s function because, well, it didn’t look like it would do enough of what I wanted. Despite Gijs’ recommendation of the PEAR module, I was happy enough to use his array_to_xml function, as it did what I needed and required the lest work for the moment. I may revisit XML_Serializer sometime, but…

MySQL Fulltext Tips

Peter Gulutzan, author of SQL Performance Tuning, writes in The Full-Text Stuff That We Didn’t Put In The Manual about the particulars of word boundaries, index structure, boolean searching, exact phrase searching, and stopwords, as well as offering a few articles for further reading (Ian Gilfillan’s “Using Fulltext Index in MySQL”, Sergei Golubchik’s “MySQL Fulltext Search”, Joe Stump’s “MySQL FULLTEXT Searching”). It’s one of a number of articles in the MySQL Tech Resources collection.