I was catching up on Lorcan Dempsey’s thoughts before attending his talks at KU today and tomorrow. Lorcan, thanks for pointing me to John Wilkins’ blog - really more essay than blog. While reading John’s salient and well-structured thoughts on metasearch and library systems, I find myself nodding and thinking “exactly”. “We must not try to do what the network can do for us”. Read on….
1 comment December 5th, 2007
Wink is a free, but not open source, application for recording screencasts. Wink outputs to a number of file formats including Flash. I don’t know how it compares to Camtasia, but my impression is that Wink lacks many of the editing features. Still, Wink is very straightforward and easy to use and met the needs of my first little screencast.
Add comment April 11th, 2007
I’ve been impressed by some of Microsoft’s recent projects, the Windows Live suite in particular. I’ve used FolderShare on a daily basis for the last 4 months to sync folders between my Tablet PC and my desktop machine. It’s a simple P2P tool that works.
I’m using Windows Live Writer to compose this post and I’ve been using it for about the last 3 months. It’s an enjoyable environment and definitely better than discovering that I lost an entire post because I forgot to periodically save while composing in Wordpress.
Jon Udell recently wrote an interesting post about Office Live. I found it compelling enough to try the free version. I would probably jump off a cliff if Jon recommended it. Of course, the requirement of using IE was annoying, but expected. The real problem, captured in my very first screencast, appeared after the Office Live registration process when I wanted to begin using the service. I did not alter or edit the capture at all. This occurred on my Tablet PC running Windows XP and IE 7. It completely prevented me from moving on.
This foible is an example of the downside of Microsoft and continued fodder for Apple’s Mac vs. PC commercials. Microsoft forces us into IE, but even IE 7 and Microsoft’s own sites rarely deliver an enjoyable experience.
I still to hope to revisit Office Live at some point, but for now it’s forgettable.
2 comments April 11th, 2007
Spammers have been avid readers and commenters of a recent post, due, I’m guessing to trackbacks. I have moderation enabled, but the instruments of spam apparently are not designed to discern or care. The moderation alerts have finally nagged me enough to care and so I’ve implemented a couple of protections: Akismet and Did You Pass Math? I’m testing them here.
1 comment February 15th, 2007
I’m working on a presentation one of my colleagues is giving next week. I had the idea to insert a well-known piece of TV history. Thanks to sites like YouTube, Google Video, and MySpace, the video I wanted was easily found. Unfortunately, we’re using PowerPoint which presented its own set of challenges and that’s another story. Ideally, I wanted to cue the video to start at a specific spot in my clip. Sure, the whole clip is of itself entertaining, but I’m trying more and more to keep presentations direct, to the point, and tasteful.
After some searching, I discovered that Google Video now supports timecode linking. Google Video uses the Flash Player and Adobe’s marketing name for timecode links is Cue Points. Well, it turns out that this method works nicely if I want to show the video surrounded by the usual Google search box, links, and video information. I didn’t. I wanted to embed a video object that would preserve my cueing either in a web page or directly within my PowerPoint.
Finally, I discovered Angsuman Chakraborty’s post on how to achieve just what I wanted using embedded Google Video. Google makes the embedding easy, but not so much the cueing. It took me a good hour of searching and URL hacking before I realized that it would have to be done in the FlashVars property of the Flash player if at all. That turned out to be the key not only to solving my original problem, but also in creating a successful search in Google.
I don’t frequently bemoan the weaknesses of brute-force search, as it’s been referred to in the digital library community. Frankly, I don’t experience those weaknesses much. However, this was certainly one of those times.
Add comment January 18th, 2007
Since our recent move to the Kansas City area we have been attending Heartland Community Church. Heartland is similar in mind and mission to Woodcrest. We have yet to find any church that makes sense on the level that Woodcrest does, but Heartland is close to that and is definitely a great place to be.
How can you argue with a Senior Pastor that fell so in love with Glen Phillips‘ new record, Mr. Lemons, on his retreat that he created a series of messages using Glen’s (and Toad’s) music as a backdrop for the themes of Ecclesiastes? Nice work, Dan! The messages, but probably not the tunes, are available by podcast.
1 comment October 19th, 2006
I continue to be inspired by WPopac, Corey Bisson’s reformulation of the library catalog using WordPress. Corey calls WPopac “an OPAC 2.0 Testbed”. In this case, WordPress is just the means of bringing the library catalog into the 21st Century, with open standards and flexible interfaces.
I first learned about WPopac at Corey’s IUG Presentation, “Designing An OPAC for Web 2.0“. As a satisfied new user of WordPress, I was already convinced that somehow it might be a great tool for the library. I certainly wasn’t the first to wonder how and Corey’s work wrapped some flesh around it.
You can experience WPopac at Plymouth State, Corey’s place, and there are more implementations to come.
Who needs WebOPAC software for our catalogs as long as we have access to our data and open source apps like WordPress or Joomla!? The answer, of course, is those of us who are locked into turnkey systems that build walls around our data and then force us to pay for still more software in order to stick some doors into the walls. Change is in the air though, especially as librarians increasingly take to the Web 2.0 meme and begin to expect more from their systems.
Add comment August 5th, 2006
The June 19 issue of Businessweek introduces a great new section called in, Inside Innovation that features leading innovators, trends, stats, and case studies. In this issue, they profile 5 “Champions of Innovation”. One of the innovators profiled is Marissa Mayer, Google’s Vice-President for Search Products and User Experience. From Marissa’s 9 Notions of Innovation:
- Ideas come from everywhere
- Share everything you can
- You’re brilliant, we’re hiring
- A license to pursue dreams
- Innovation, not instant perfection
Add comment June 16th, 2006
Nancy Davenport, President of the Council on Library and Information Resources and keynote speaker at IUG 2006, gave a stirring and forward-looking talk. Librarians as IT workers and IT as the evolving DNA of libraries were her central themes. She also pointed to some nice examples of how some libraries are innovating their physical spaces to better accomodate customer behavior.
Coincidentally or inevitably, she cited research into Starbuck’s brand awareness and cultural impact and urged us to replace “Starbuck’s” with “library” as we read the article excerpt. Unfortunately, I missed the author’s name but I’ll be on the lookout. Until then, I’ll just have to point you here.
Add comment May 22nd, 2006
In a recent post, I said that Howard Schultz is the CEO of Starbuck’s. He is in fact the Chairman.
Add comment May 22nd, 2006