A Day in the Life

Day 1 of week of keeping track of what librarians or library workers do so we can see the diversity of the jobs we do.

Monday January 26, 2009

7:15 – arrive at work – disarm alarm, unlock elevator and open office. Remove tapes, clean tape drives (on both Horizon server and AuthorityWorks server) insert new tapes.

8:00 – perform morning task such as checking our catalog (login, searching and requesting working), making sure Day End process finished correctly as well as several other processes, checking several server logs, making sure Zserver connects to Marina (our ILL for the state), verify that telephony system is working

8:15 – check email, Facebook, Friendfeed, Twitter and RSS feeds.

8:30 – discuss current LOST theories with 2 of my co-workers.

9:30 – investigated extra white spacing in our Highly Recommend blog. Part of the problem is code we had added that previously had to be there to keep 2 images from bleeding over into next post. But still the problem exists so something in the WordPress code will have to be looked at.

9:45 – fought with Nokia N800 software update

10:34 – finally updated Nokia N800 and setup bluetooth for phone (although it wanted to set it up with my co-worker’s blackberry instead – not sure he’d like that idea)

10:37 – started one of my Grooveshark playlists and went through bounced back emails (from our pre-overdue, overdue and hold notices), removed emails from Horizon database and made note on customer’s accounts.

11:15 – planned Picasa training for Library Associate Training Institute students since we aren’t a Microsoft shop and we can’t use Photostory3.

11:20 – began learning Picasa Web Albums for training I’ll be giving

11:35 – discussed with one of the LATI folks just what exactly they are going to be doing to decide if Picasa, Wink or Impress will suit their needs – seems like Wink might work best for some but others will need Picasa

12:15 – LUNCH!

12:45 – work on CIL09 presentation slides which are due to my co-presenters by end of the week

1:18 – struggling to find CC images on Flickr that I can use for my CIL09 presentation. Even contacted CC Guru, Michael Sauers, to verify which photos I could and couldn’t use. Frustrated because I find a perfect image – only hope is contacting the owner and seeing if they’ll grant me permission to use it in my presentation.  *Contacted owner and they agreed to let me use it in the presentation – WHOO HOO!

3:15 – off to take my son to get his high school senior portrait taken

Ignorance Is Anything But Bliss

My iGoogle home page greeted me with an article on Slashdot that couldn’t be ignored.   When Teachers Are Obstacles to Linux in Education article is based on the Blog of helios.   As I read the blog and comments I just sit there with my jaw open.  But then I got to thinking about it.  This is a sad but true reality.  Most people who use computers for personal use don’t know the first thing about them.   Odd thing is most people have come to expect things like Blue Screen of Death, having to reboot after every update (which come more and more frequently), slow to operate, expensive software options, a native browser that doesn’t properly handle poorly coded web sites, viruses and malware directly written for a specific operating system to exploit it’s weaknesses – why oh, why should this be acceptable?

People just want it to work.  They don’t want to be “burdened” (I prefer to say enlightened) with learning a bit about the machine they so naively trust to be secure.  Problem is accepting the aforementioned “issues” as the norm is reminds me of the quote from “The Matrix“  It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. I hope that Mr. Starks is able to educate not only this teacher but many others as well.   Linux is the definitely the blue pill – take it and free not only your mind but your operating system.

OCLC is to Microsoft …

… as OpenLibrary is to open source?

There seems to be a bit of buzz about OCLC becoming a monopoly (hence the reference to Microsoft).  So is OpenLibrary the equilvalent of open source?  Well according to their site the software is open, the data is open, the documentation is open, and the site is open.  The more I move around their site and read the more interested in this project I become.  Not being a cataloger I don’t understand all the implications but as someone who supports open source and free access to information this project seems to be one worthy of my attention.

Interested?  You can participate in a couple of ways.  From the OpenLibrary site – how you can help.  Or if you’d like to there is a petition to OCLC that you can sign.

Let my information go!

In a Perfect World…

…we can put an end to Word attachments, an article written by Richard Stallman. Mr. Stallman was featured in the movie Revolution OS and is the (according to Wikipedia entry) is an American software freedom activist, hacker (programmer), and software developer. He seems to be a man of strong convictions and at times can come off a bit extreme. But one can not fault him for being passionate.

My boss, Amy De Groff Director of IT, forwarded me his article on ending Word attachments. As someone that uses OpenOffice.org products which can open most Microsoft Word docs it never fails to frustrate me that someone assumes that I am using Microsoft products. Or that I want my inbox filled with attachments that take up room. But I just shrug my shoulders, grin and bear it and move on.

In a perfect world people would do just what Mr. Stallman suggests in his article – send as plain text, HTML (love that idea) or PDF. I don’t know how Mr. Stallman feels about this but why not use something like Google Docs or Zoho? All I would get in my email (if you must communicate that way) is a hyperlink. I like his ideas for many reasons – reduce the amount of space taken up by documents as attachments and not using proprietary software products. But lets take it one step further – use collaborative software such as Google Docs or Zoho. This keeps not only everyone’s inbox smaller but 20 people don’t need to download the document to read it, forgetting to delete it and then junking up their hard drive space.

I love to use things like Google Docs, Doodle (when I want to take a poll of many different people) because all anyone needs is a web browser (hopefully Firefox but that’s another battle) and Internet access. They don’t need specific software to view or edit the attachment.

I wish Mr. Stallman luck in his crusade. I think it is a noble one and one that will happen albeit slowly.

Shiney But With Substance

Today Google announced their latest coup d’etat – Chrome. Some have denounced it without even being to download it (this was prior to the Noon PDT launch time). To those I say that’s right up there with judging a book by it’s cover. Some equated Google with Microsoft. To those I say, HUH?! How on earth can you compare a company that is strictly proprietary to one that embraces open source with it’s latest and coolest product? Some have complained because it doesn’t have a plugin for this or that. To those I say time will tell. But if I were a gambling woman I’d put my money on Google.

For me personally, it is my browser of choice on my Windows machine at work. If they had launched it today as Linux compatible it would be my browser of choice at both work and home. I think that is a pretty good endorsement that after 30 minutes of playing with it (what a fast download that imported everything from Firefox for me lickety-split) I decided I could do without my colored tabs in Firefox (and other plugins) or my social networks in Flock.

Why you might ask would I be so willing to give up my favorite 2 browsers for Chrome which is still in beta and does have a few flaws? 2 reasons – open source and the amazing fact that if a site should crash my browser it will now ONLY crash that tab and not the whole browser. That alone is enough to make me switch. But you add to the fact that it’s an open source browser and I’m sold.

I’m sure I’ll run into something that doesn’t work just right but I’m willing to hang in there with Chrome as Google has yet to disappoint me.

Kudos to the gang at Google. They have created the next generation of browsers that everyone will be emulating in weeks, months, years to come.

Edit – and if my opinion of it isn’t enough….there is already a listing of the 7 Really Awesome Things About Chrome

Edit part II – ah, the first real problem arises.  But then every new product has to go through growing pains.  Thanks to Michael Sauers for Digg-ing this.

From This Can’t Possibly Be True File

…but sadly it is file.

In defiance of the patent that was awarded Micro$oft on August 19th of this year, I am no longer using the Page Up and Page Down buttons on my keyboard.  As a user of open source operating system (Ubuntu at home and work) I can not in all clear conscience use those buttons anymore.  Geesh, at this rate they might have to make an OS keyboard and mouse and monitor and printer and….

Guess I could just relabel those keys – Page vertical skywardly direction and Page vertical earthly direction.

Get cuil, boy! Real cuil!

Boy, boy, crazy boy,
Get cool, boy!
Got a rocket in your pocket,
Keep coolly cool, boy!…  (lyrics for “Cool” from West Side Story)

Former Google staff members create new search engine.

Hmm, decided to give it a try by doing a search for Lost.

CUIL results

Google results

Prettier display but not sure of the layout of search results.  Will be interesting to compare results to see which one gives me what I want.  Just not sure it will become part of the vocabulary like Google did.  Is there room for yet another search engine?  Will Google pull a Microsoft and try to squeeze Cuil out of the arena?  Only time will tell.

No More Facebook

*sigh* Guess I’ll have to stop using Facebook now. Microsoft to power Facebook search ads. Yahoo, Facebook, what next, the world?! I wasn’t so anti-Microsoft as I was open to open source. The more M$ tries to gobble up everything around it the more anti-M$ I’m becoming. *sigh*

Oops, M$ Did it Again

First forgive me for quoting anything resembling Britney Spears song (my bad).

Good ol’ Microsoft did it again. Patch Tuesday came and went but it left some Zone Alarm folks out in the dark.  When I saw this I immediately though “Oh crap, I’ll have to go home and update….” but then it dawned on me I no longer have XP but Ubuntu. The relief, the joy that came over me when I realized that not only did I NOT have to do those bloody Windows updates but I don’t need Zone Alarm anymore (although it was a good friend to me).

Imagine life with no more Patch Tuesday issues…..you can have it too just use Linux.

Edited to include link from BBCNews.

A Little Behind the Times?

Good ol’ Microsoft jumps on the band wagon ….. finally!

Opera 9.5 and Firefox 3 already have anti-malware protection so I guess MS thought it was a good idea too.  I absolutely refuse to use that browser at work and at home.  I even forbid the Comcast guy who came out to trouble shoot our internet connection from using it.  He’d probably freak now when he saw that I have Ubuntu and Firefox nothing MS related on my home desktop.