Drupal Camp Chicago Fri.-Sat. (10/24-10/25)

Kyle and Matthew along with a few others from the CDMUG are putting together a Drupal Camp Chicago.

It's a two-day event running from Friday (10/24) to Saturday (10/25). Location is the UIC Innovation Center at 1240 W. Harrison in Chicago.

Website for the event is http://drupalcampchicago.org/. It's only a month away but they're still taking suggestions for sessions at this link:

I'll be doing a Library BoF tentatively scheduled for early Friday afternoon. The idea is:

• Showcase library-related Drupal projects in the Chicagoland area.
• Talk about future plans and aspirations, field questions and compare experiences.

Mark your calendars today!

OneWebDay 2008

OneWebDay is Monday. Here's a link to the spiffy event site:  http://www.onewebday.org/

The idea is to celebrate the benefits we derive from the Web. The hope is the more we appreciate it, the more we'll be protective of it. You can read more on the OneWebDay's About Page...

Last year I did a video of UIC students talking about how they use the web. This year I've got a ton of commitments so I'll just have to replay last year's effort. See below.

PT Reference Gig at DePaul

Today was my first day doing reference at DePaul University Library. I grabbed a couple of volumes of the DLB and a volume of the NUC (Pre 1956) and I was in 7th Heaven. It's only a couple hours a week but I love it!

PLAspace.org - Official Launch

Okay, today was the official launch of the new community site that I've been working on for the Public Library Association: PLAspace.org

The announcement reads:

"Today marks another milestone in the rollout of PLAspace. We officially open the doors to new CoPs and new participants.

We created PLAspace to give Public Library Association members a place where they could share ideas and work together on common interests. Today, the first official day for the site, we already have several dozen members and a half-dozen CoPs."

Old Projects Never Die : Red Scare (1918-1921)

"Red Scare (1918-1921)" was a project I did for extra credit while finishing up my MLS at Queens College (CUNY). It must have been around 1997.

The online exhibit consisted of political cartoons with some photos from the period 1918-1921. There were over a hundred images illustrating the hysteria of the time -- most scanned from hard-bound copies of the Literary Digest, then conveniently housed in the stacks of NYU Bobst Library. The exhibit is hosted by Newman Library, Baruch College (CUNY) where I went after NYU.

Anyway, every once and a while, I get a request for permission to use one or two of the images. There was a lot of interest in them around the time of 9/11 but even afterwards, the requests still come in.

I usually explain that the copyright has long run out on the images and that they're free for the downloading. The latest request was from one of the College Prep Testing Services. They want to use one or two of the images for their section on U.S. History.

I guess, I'll have to upgrade the project at some point. Ten years is a long time for content like this on the Web.

Back to School at UIC

Today was the first day of classes at UIC. It was a nice summer but I'm happy to see the students back.

They had people at all the entrances giving out information. You can just make out the "UIC Orientation" table in the distance.

Amherst College Library Launches New Site

Tracy Sutherland gave us a sneak peek of the new site, then under development, at the Drupal4Lib BoF at ALA Anaheim in June.

Now it's been launched for the whole world to see:
https://www.amherst.edu/library

Nice job and Congrads to all!

PLAspace.org - Soft Launch

We're doing a 'soft-launch' of PLAspace.org -- the community website that I've been working on together with some very nice people from the Public Library Association as well as a number of volunteers.

It's open to the public but it won't be officially announced till sometime in September. Anyway, have a look:

http://www.PLAspace.org

The Parboiled Rice Has Come! The Parboiled Rice Has Come!

 

Yay, the Parboiled Rice has come!  For 10 years, I lived in New York City and for 10 years I ate Parboiled Rice from the Associated Supermarket either on 14th St. or 23rd St.

So what do I do when I start running out of the cherished grains? Why I send for 10 pounds more of course -- via Priority Mail.

Here's the latest shipment.

eBook Readers Suck as eBook Readers

First people, please don't mention the Kindle and the future-of-print in the same breath. That would imply that one has something to do with the other and why do Amazon's marketing for them?

But ignoring that for a moment, I think the whole concept of a dedicated "ebook" reader is somewhat dodgy.  I mean, if that's all they do, why bother?

You can't copy out bits and pieces of the text, import them into something you're working on, share them with friends, blog about them -- or do any of the million other things you're used to doing on electronic devices that are increasingly just as small and inexpensive.

In other words, an 'eBook' reader completely sucks as an 'eBook' reader because it treats what you're reading as a complete digital dead-end.

Leo Kline in the Onion!

Workplace environment: I've been on the receiving end of this from my co-workers since yesterday. From the most recent edition of The Onion:

ROCHESTER, NY—Reported sightings of Rochester's legendary "phantom diner," a mysterious restaurant that purportedly appears only to those in the most inebriated state of their lives, are often met with skepticism and incredulity. But for Leo Kline, 24, who claims he visited the diner this past weekend, the apparitional eatery is all too real.

Like I wear green?

No Vacation for Leo

I wish I could say my lack of posting for the last week or so is because of me 'gone fishing'.

Instead, I'm working on a site for the Public Library Association that, happily, is close to completion.

The thing's looking good but it's taken all my free time away.

Flatbed CTA Buses

The Sun-Times writes:

CTA L cars could become more like cattle cars if the transit agency goes ahead with plans to remove seats on some L cars in the next few months to squeeze in all the riders leaving their cars home and turning to mass transit.

What's next? Flatbed CTA buses?

'Hell' - Too Hot a Word for the Chicago Sun-Times

I wanted to leave the following comment on an article about MillerCoors [MGD] moving its headquarters to Chicago:

"Well, it's not the best but what the hell, reason enough to order another MGD for me."

Unfortunately, the word 'hell' appears to be too hot for the prudes over at the Chicago Sun-Times since I got the following error (in red no less):

"Please edit or remove the following word(s), then resubmit your content: hell." 

Usability Guidelines from the Yale University Library

We've come a long way from the days of 'you must learn our system in order to use it'. From the Usability Guidelines at Yale University Library:

Factor:  

• Simplicity. Scale back features and dramatically simplify the experience for initial use. This should reduce unnecessary distractions, excess information, from initial screens. An initial search screen should not include advanced features, such as search by publisher or call number.

Examples:

• Avoid wordiness -- only show most necessary text, be concise.
• Initial page should include only the most important and common tasks for this service with unobtrusive links to other advanced functionality.

More here...

P.S. Remember the Yale site when the front page was one big graphic of nothing but a bunch of leather book spines?

Anthony Millionaire

I caught up with old pal and former Wonderful Guise Anthony Millionaire while in LA.

Currently, he's working on a tv show for Cartoon Network's "Adult Swim" based on his comic strip, "Maakies".

Drupal4Lib BoF at ALA Anaheim

We got a great crowd of around 20 people for our Drupal 'Birds of a Feather'. The above is a shot of everybody in the BIGWIG Bloggers' room -- just before we got kicked out by some group from YALSA (bums, we'll get even)!

(We then proceeded to the next available empty room and had our get-together there.)

First up on the agenda was setting up the Drupal IG, making sure we have enough signatures and asking for volunteers to serve as Chair and Co-Chair. For the first year, Leo Klein (i.e. me) graciously volunteered to serve as chair and Ian Chen as co-chair.

The name for the IG is 'Drupal4Lib' and our purpose is "to promote the use and understanding of the content management system, Drupal, by libraries and librarians".

Next on the agenda was the true meat-and-potatoes of the BoF: shooting the breeze about Drupal and demonstrating a few sites we were working on.

The group consisted of librarians at all levels of experience from expert to beginner. Some were shopping around for a CMS and hadn't yet decided which one to choose. Some had already deployed Drupal in one way or another -- if only locally on their laptop -- and wanted to learn more about it.

Jon Blackburn showed us the FSU Library site, Tracy Sutherland gave us a taste of the soon-to-be launched Amherst Library site, and finally, Co-Chair volunteer Ian Chen gave us a taste of his wonderful work from his portfolio site.

Unfortunately my nifty little projector was suffering relocation fits and kept on shutting down. [Note to attendees: if you weren't able to show us a site because of projector problems, please post them here].

All in all the surprising thing was how quickly the time went. I personally found the BoF extremely rewarding. There aren't many opportunities to meet face-to-face with colleagues united by an interest or curiosity in Drupal.

I really look forward to our next get-together -- in Chicago?

LITA Happy Hour at ALA Anaheim

Not the best quality shot but hopefully it conveys what a great time I had at the LITA Happy Hour on Friday, June 27. I got most of the signatures for the Drupal IG plus met a bunch of great people.

Current Cites for June 2008

[From O'Hare on my way to ALA in Anaheim:]  Roy just posted Current Cites for June 2008. I wrote up an article by Erica Reynolds called "The Secret to Patron-Centered Web Design: Cheap, Easy, and Powerful Usability Techniques" which appeared in this month's Computers In Libraries. You can find the issue here...

LibSite.org (More than) One Year Old

I've been involved with so many different things that I completely forgot the one-year anniversary of LibSite.org !!! Shame on me.

Yes, April 10, 2007 was the historic launch of the user-generated Library Website recommendation service. I was reminded of it recently by the number of sites posted -- increasingly -- from all over the world.

Most recently, and most wonderfully, we've had a collection of interesting examples of Web 2.0 à la française.

I'd like to thank everyone who's listed their site there. The experiment continues.

LITA Drupal Interest Group?

A couple people from LITA have helpfully suggested that we set up a Drupal Interest Group (IG).

I think this is a great idea since, as I understand it, IG's get a slot at one of the officially sanctioned meeting rooms come convention time.

Aaron Dobbs, Mary Taylor and our friends at BIGWIG have been very supportive in allowing us to have our Drupal4Lib BoF in the Bloggers Room but by having the IG, we can do a couple of things more, including as I said, maybe getting a room of our own next time round.

In any case, all IG's have Chairs and Co-chairs. I'd be happy to offer myself up as the initial Chair. (The thing is open so basically anyone can throw their hat in the ring.) We'd also need someone(s) interested in being Co-Chair. Term is a year.

This is all something we can discuss at the BoF -- on Sunday, June 29 (3:30p-5p). All we need are 10 signatures to get the thing off the ground.

See the Info Page on LITA IGs...

P.S. for the BoF, I'm bringing this nice little projector so people can show off their sites and projects if they want.

Old Friend Mark Stewart Up For Tony Award

 Finally someone I know is famous!

In the 80's in crazy Kreuzberg, West Berlin, a bunch of us belonged to this good-time group called the 'Wonderful Guise'. Mark Stewart was one of the lead musicians.

Well, Mark Stewart is now up for a Tony award as "Best Musical" for his show 'Passing Strange'. According to a write-up in the Village Voice, this Bildungsroman in musical form "takes him to Amsterdam and then to Berlin, where he's indoctrinated into hardcore bohemian life."

Hardcore bohemian it was! Above is a shot from a concert we gave at the venerable SO36. Mark's on the left, followed by Enrico, Freie, Art and me. Not pictured were Marek the drummer and Anthony Millionaire (of Maakies fame) who did the costumes and sets.

UPDATE: Results are in. 'In the Heights' won out over 'Passing Strangely' for Best Musical which kind of makes sense considering the subject and location of each show. 'Passing Strangely' did get the 'Best Book' Award which is still pretty good.

'Conversation' Fails Hillary

Not to be too political here (I really try not to be) but I was reminded by a segment on NPR's Weekend Edition, that the original opening line of Hillary Clinton's campaign was the almost unbearable cliche:

"Let the Conversation Begin"

It's interesting to read in most analyses of her loss to Sen. Obama (here's one), that it was specifically a lack of imagination, flexibility, and attention to detail that proved her undoing.

Perhaps the two are related...

New Library Web Project

I've got a neat job building a community site for one of the library organizations here. I'll talk more about it at our Drupal4Lib BoF in Anaheim but basically the idea is to promote online collaboration. Needless to say (for those in the know), I'll be making great use of Drupal's Organic Groups.

Best Rib Tips in Chicago Moves to Armitage

I don't go very often but the best place for rib tips in Chicago, Calvin's BBQ (formerly Smokin' Woody's) is moving from near Lincoln Square to Armitage just west of Western.

Drupal4Lib BoF at ALA in Anaheim

I got a number of enthusiastic and helpful suggestions on the Drupal4Lib list as to when and where we could hold our Drupal4Lib BoF.

It's increasingly looking like it'll be Sunday after the LITA Top Technology Trends in the LITA Bloggers' Room. 

Drupal Talk II at UIC (5/30)

I'll be doing a follow-up to my talk on Drupal at UIC on Friday, 5/23 5/30 (1:30p-3pm) in Burnham Hall 308. The title of the Talk is: "The Wonderful World of Drupal Modules". Basically I'll go into some of the more important modules: CCK, Views, ImageCache, Panels, etc.

More info here: http://tinyurl.com/6exfs9

UPDATE: I had to postpone the talk by one week -- to 5/30.

Mayor Daley Speaking at the UIC Forum

Mayor Daley speaking at UIC's Daley Urban Forum named after his father Richard J.

The Forum featured a number of Mayors from Arab countries. Many of them have troubles that are common to countries in the 3rd World (lack of funding, infrastructure, etc.)

Particularly moving however was the account by the Mayor of Mosul, Iraq.

He talked about the challenges the Municipal government faces there. These include setting up a "prostheses factory" to deal with all the people, including children, who've had limbs blown off due to bombs. The Mayor reported with pride that a number of Healthcare Centers had been set up despite the fact that many of Iraq's original medical workers had fled the country.

Even here, success was not complete however, since one or two of these Centers had subsequently been bombed.

Despite this hell, the Mayor was optimistic. He would have shown us pictures only they stopped him from bringing them at Baghdad Airport.

Slides from Talk on Drupal at UIC

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Earthquake in Chicago

Well, the bed started to wobble and I thought either I should've gotten a better bed or maybe the floor in my new place wasn't as intact as I had assumed.

And no, I did not run down to the street screaming.

Leo Klein's Top 10 Most Favorite Drupal Modules

Someone on the Drupal4Lib list asked what Drupal Modules were "most useful" for creating a library website.

Here are some of the ones I couldn't live without:

1. Content Construction Kit (CCK) - Gives you the ability to model your own data types.
2. Views - Gives you the ability to display those data types any way you want.
3. Panels - Allows you to position your data anywhere you want on the page.
4. ImageCache - Allows you to make as many copies of an image as you want at any size depending on location or anything else you specify.
5. Organic groups - Create as many groups as you want (e.g. users, staff, etc.), restrict content by group.
6. Captcha - Keeps the spam couties away.
7. Community Tags - Allows users to create and assign their own tags to content.
8. Tagadelic - Creates a Tag Cloud.
9. Clone module - The name says it all.
10. BUEditor - Simple HTML tag editor. 

Moving: Packing Up

Yup, it's that time again: I'm moving to a new apartment. Here I'm doing some prep work.

More Ugly Money from the U.S. Treasury

I really think the US Mint (coins) and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (dollar bills) have lost the art of designing money. The fine detail and overall sense of composition that used to distinguish our currency is now no more.

Case in point is the new $5 dollar bill with that big ugly purple '5'. It looks like they just got out a huge rubber stamp and banged away.

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing praises this as "Safer, Smarter, More Secure". Apparently 'visually impressive' so it conveys -- who knows? -- the idea of actually being worth something is no longer a requirement.

Meanwhile someone has created a website called "Get Helvetica Off Our Money."

Formatting Catastrophe: 'UIC Announce'

I mean, they're not even trying:
http://tigger.uic.edu/announce/ [web archive]

Current Cites for March 2008

Current Cites for March 2008 is out!  I posted on an article in this month's Online called "The New Rules of Web Design". You can find the issue here...

Online Anonymity is a Human Right

Lest we forget, from the blog, Technology Liberation Front:

"Despite the appeal of combating defamation by banning online anonymity, lawmakers should be wary about restricting anonymous speech in the name of fighting libel. The same laws designed to deter defamation can also be used to target political dissent or silence whistleblowers for whom the option of remaining anonymous is critical. While Mark Klein and Babak Pasdar elected to reveal their identities, they remind us that whistleblowers are crucial safeguards against government excesses. And as Chinese dissidents know all too well, governments around the world have a long history of suppressing political opinions that undermine state legitimacy."

1st Day at OAR

Today was my first day as Web Coordinator at the Office of Admission and Records at UIC. Bunch of nice people and lots of possibilities for the site.

On a totally unrelated note, here's a shot from the day before of my sister blowing out the candles on her birthday cake.

Simplicity vs. Complexity in Design Rematch

Don Norman's at it again! Here's his wonderful description of the balance that designers need to observe between complexity and simplicity:

"The mark of the great designer is the ability to provide what people need without excessive complexity, without feature bloat. Simplicity should never be the goal. Follow the famous Einstein quote: "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." Complex things will require complexity. It is the job of the designer to manage that complexity with skill and grace."

He says this unfortunately in the context of a completely gratuitous squabble with Chicago-based developers, 37signals (here's their response). Nevertheless, it's an approach I find quite appealing -- certainly more than his earlier attempt which led to this post.

Current Cites for February 2008

Okay, the latest edition of Current Cites is out the door. I've got a cite on the tag-tussle concerning IE8. Unfortunately I wrote the thing up before the most recent decision by MS to go with "standards-mode" as default. (An update is on the way.)

In any case, you can see the issue here... 

Drupal for Libraries - Slides

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First, I'd like to thank everyone for coming. I appreciated the energy and enthusiasm -- plus the good questions.

Above are the slides for the first part. For the second part, see the screencast "Creating a Library Database Page with Drupal".

I should have the audio file up in a few days. [Done 3/4/08]

NOTE: the 'full-screen' version at SlideShare actually looks pretty good. Have a look...

For the person who was having trouble using the "Sandbox" at opensourcecms.com, try the demo at http://drupal.demo.civicrm.org/

If anyone has any questions, feel free to contact me.

Again, thanks both to MLS and to the people who came!

UPDATE: Nice news from Slideshare:

"Hey leoklein!

Your slideshow Drupal for Libraries has been included in the Spotlight section on SlideShare.

Enjoy your day! the SlideShare team"

Must be the picture of me hanging upside-down that did it.

New York Times Does 'Live Blogging'

 

You know we've come a long way when the 'Grey Lady' herself starts doing 'live-blogging'.

Screencast: Creating a Library Database Page with Drupal

In anticipation of my talk 'Drupal in Libraries' that I'll be giving to the Metropolitan Library System on Fri., 2/29 (1:30p-4:30p), I'm releasing the screencast 'Creating a Library Database Page with Drupal'.

The talk will be about Drupal in the context of Open Source Software and Content Management Systems as well of course as its application in a library environment. (more info and rsvp...)

The screencast goes over the points I'll be making in the second part of my talk.

Have a look an tell me what you think.

-- Link to Smaller Version (400x300) here... --

UPDATE: The slides and audio from my presentation are now available. You can access them by going here...

Drupal 6.0 Now Available

 I just noticed over at the Drupal site that Drupal 6 has been released: http://drupal.org/drupal-6.0

You can find a pretty good screencast on new features here...

It's interesting how a number of the new features are in fact integrations of ideas that originally were developed as separate modules (Updates, Blockcache, etc.)

The pattern seems to be: people contribute new ideas as modules and then the best ones are incorporated into Drupal itself. Good plan.

The performance improvements, column headings and drag-and-drop features also look interesting.

The Digital Life

1.  Try to install Adobe Captivate on my new Mac Mini. (I've got an important 'sceencast' that's got to be done pronto.)
   But Captivate only runs on a PC.
   
   
2. Load Captivate on my old Dell Notebook.
   But it's too much for my old Dell Notebook. The thing keeps crashing.
   
   
3. Load Apple's Boot Camp on my new Mac Mini. With Boot Camp, you can run both Mac and Windows!
   But Boot Camp only runs with Windows XP Service Pack 2 ('SP2'). My copy of XP (from my old Dell Notebook) is older than that.
   
   
4.  "Slipstream" (i.e. integrate) the updates from SP2 into the earlier version of XP and produce a new bootable CD.
   But 'Slipstream' doesn't work so well on OEM (as in Dell specific) versions of XP.
   
   
5. Walk three miles to a friend's house. Grab his copy of Windows XP, go home. Install it on my Mac Mini and finally load Captivate on the PC partition.
   
   Does this sound like a productive weekend?
   (And I didn't even mention the part where I completely erased my backup drive. Don't ask.)
   
   UPDATE: The fun continues....
   
   
6. Try to add an audio track to the slides in Captivate.
   But my new Mac Mini only has "line" input -- which as anyone who's ever been through Audio 101 knows, isn't the same as a mike input
   
   
7. Rush out of the house. Go downtown to the Apple Store, buy a Griffin iMic, and just because I've become paranoid at this point, duck into a Best Buy on the way home and get a Logitech headset with build-in mike that plugs into the USB port.
   
   
8. Mission accomplished!

Old News

So I just installed MS Office 2008. (It's nice -- nothing special that I've noticed so far.) Anyway, apparently there's some messaging system that comes with the package. Here's the reminder I got. (And yes, I have a legal copy of Office.)

Change of Hosts

It took me the whole weekend so I'm not quite sure why I forgot to mention it but I've got a new Host!

Yes, that's right, my vast online empire is now in the hands of Site5.com. Since time-immemorial I've been with Pair.com but they didn't seem to be upgrading their hardware or software, their performance was sluggish, and support wasn't as good as it used to be. So over the weekend I made the switch.

Chicago Winter Wonderland

This one won't go into the record books -- not even close -- but we did get a couple inches. Here's the charming view from the back of the courtyard house where I live.

Cart before Horse with Aquabrowser in Columbus

They recently installed the Aquabrowser at the Columbus Metropolitan Library (CML). This is how the head of IT over there explained it to the Columbus Dispatch:

"We're accommodating what people are used to seeing -- people who just want to plug in a search term and get their list." [h/t Lorcan Dempsey]

What people are "used to seeing"? That animated tag-cloud doohickey?

Unless they really do things differently in Columbus, I can't imagine anyone (other than library staff) ever seeing one of these things or knowing the least what to do with it.

I mean, you can almost predict that the color-coding of the whirlin', spinnin' topics will be totally lost on the average user. Equally as bewildering is why they bothered to include what suspiciously looks like instructions (instructions?) on the main search page that attempt to explain enigmatic terms such as "Search", "Discover" and "Refine".

Confused yet? The newspaper article quotes one user as calling it "distracting" while another thinks it may not be "as intuitive as they think it is".

Touchée. Like Second Life and the Kindle, we have the implementation of a technology that has yet to receive the "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval" from the public. In other words, there's no indication of widespread acceptance or adoption on the part of our users. This is precisely the wrong approach to take.

Lastly, it doesn't help that a keyword search on "Treasure Island" only turns up the book by Robert Louis Stevenson on Page 2 of the search results.

Maybe they were focusing on the wrong thing?

P.S. In contrast, check out the results for Google and Amazon.

The First Thing to Learn is to Forget the Technology

We all have our moments of epiphany. John Blyberg had his recently regarding Library 2.0. In a post called, "Library 2.0 Debased" he pulls no punches:

It's very evident in the profusity of L2-centric workshops and conferences that there is a significant snake-oil market in the bibliosphere. We’re blindly casting about for a panacea and it’s making us look like fools.

He goes on to warn against "arbitrarily introducing technology that isn’t properly integrated into our overarching information framework". Our choice of technologies needs to make sense, he argues, ultimately to our end-users.

This of course is completely true. As a survival tactic, if for no better reason, you'd think we'd all be trying to work out our core competencies long before shopping around for technologies.

Unfortunately a lot of what passes for "L2.0" seems to go in the opposite direction.

All too often it's how to build our libraries around blogs, wikis and social networks -- rather than the other way around. Add to this a level of individual affirmation and self-discovery more appropriate on occasion to a revival meeting than a PD, and you have a picture not of innovation but of its caricature.

Worse, there seems to be a certain element of one-up's-manship in play, at least among the more ambitious, with whoever adopting the largest number of 2.0 technologies in the least amount of time being perceived as most "cutting edge".

This isn't going to work. You might as well have a chicken with its head cut off picking technologies. At least the results would be harder to predict.

[h/t Blake]

Congressional Campaign Site: DebbieHalvorson.com

I'm still kind of knocked out -- been working 24/7 on this for several weeks. That said, I'm pleased to announce the availability online of DebbieHalvorson.com .

Debbie's running for Congress in the 11th CD of Illinois.

The site is fully automated using Drupal for content management. Campaign staff can add images to any content type (eg. press release, blog post, etc.) They can also designate any post as "spotlight" for the 'In Focus' section on the front page.

Even the main slideshow which is meant to present broad campaign themes, can be changed simply by uploading new images to the site. Resizing is done automatically.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the results.

New Sony eReader Ad: 'Smarter than a Doofus'

 Advertisement near the escalator at the Clark & Lake El Stop in Chicago:

"Smarter than a doofus who bought one of these things (your doofus may vary)."

The Moment

I don't watch television very often. In fact, I watch it so infrequently that I keep the set hidden away in a closet for most of the year. It only comes out at times of national disaster or an election. In this case, it was the latter -- happily -- as I wheeled the thing out to catch Barack Obama's speech in Iowa with the memorable words, "This was the moment when it all began".

(NYU) ITP AlumniBlender Blog

I got a nice note from Rob Faludi saying he had added me to the ITP Alumni Blog, 'ITP AlumniBlender'. I thanked him and told him I thought it was a great idea.

I graduated from ITP in 2000. I think the best thing I got out of it was the contact with my fellow students, some of whom were easily the most talented designers and software developers in NYC.

The graphic by the way, goes to a spoof I did of ITP's website at the time. The thing really suffered from an overdose of black (yeah, I know, everyone was doing it) and sans serif fonts. 

Holiday Dinner

End of year get-together. It was nice to see everyone. Alas, being the cook, I was cooped up in the kitchen for way too much of it. Next year, I'm ordering out!

P.S. Managed to do all the dishes within 24 hours of the event. Yes, I know, a miracle.

Top 10 Reasons Not to Compile a Top 10 List

1. Everyone's doing it.
   
2. What about 'Top 3' or 'Top 12'? What's with '10' all the time?
   
3. I'd feel better about this if it didn't happen in December. Who's got the time? Better in August.
   
4. Sorry, I'm not going to bring up the iPhone or the Kindle again under any circumstances.
   
5. I'm still waiting for my Avatar to arrive from Second Life.
   
6. I'm thinking of doing a 'Top 3,000' over the course of the next 10 years and don't want to commit myself to a measly 'Top 10' this early in the process.
   
7. Got no time: My new book, Everything As Conversation, either goes to the publisher this month or my goose is cooked.
   
8. In a year where Vladimir Putin and 'woot' are top picks, maybe the less said the better.
   
9. It's not my problem if you're the last person on earth to hear about '2.0'.
   
10. 2007? Wake me up when it's over.

Current Cites for December 2007

 

Current Cites for December 2007 is out!  I even managed to put something in myself this month -- an interesting article by Ben Shneiderman on the promise of "creativity support tools". You can find the issue here...

A Modest Suggestion : LibrarySandbox.org

I got an interesting request a little while ago. A librarian wanted to know if she could get administrative access to a website I was running so she could see how Drupal works.

Naturally I had to say no, but it got me thinking that a "sandbox" version of Drupal -- based on a library website -- might be useful to people who wanted an idea of the "look and feel" of the thing.

Drupal has a module called "Demo" that makes sandboxes possible. So now I'm thinking this might form the basis of an interesting collaborative project.

The goal would be to create a model library website (representing a fictitious institution) that people would have administrative access to.

The website would have events, a list of resources, plus all the other accouterments a modern day fictitious institution would have.

If you'd like to help out or have any advice, feel free to leave a comment here. Or just email me.

I've already registered the domain, www.LibrarySandbox.org, though there's not much up there at the moment. 

eReader of the Future

Repeat after me:

• The eReader of the Future will play popular formats without the need for conversion.
• The eReader of the Future will be in color.
• The eReader of the Future will be an "open" networked device.
• The eReader of the Future will allow the user to download and install applications.
• The eReader of the Future will allow the user to mix and match information any way the user pleases.
• The eReader of the Future will not come from a company heavily invested in media ownership or sales.
• The eReader of the Future will boast access not simply to tens of thousands of works but to millions on the internet.
• The eReader of the Future will look a lot like the UMPC of the present.

DRUPAL4LIB Tops 200 Subscribers

Announced less than two days ago, I'm happy to see that we now have more than 200 subscribers!

What better indication of the need for a Library ListServ on Drupal than this?

DRUPAL4LIB, a ListServ for Librarians Interested in Drupal

I just sent out the following announcement to various library-related email lists:

Hi All,

I'm pleased to announce a new ListServ for librarians called 'DRUPAL4LIB'.

As the name implies, 'DRUPAL4LIB' is for those interested in Drupal, a popular open-source CMS, as it relates to libraries and librarians.

The idea is to have a forum to exchange ideas and advice, share experiences, and maybe even collaborate on a couple of projects that highlight the use of Drupal in a library context.

TO SUBSCRIBE:
Send the command 'SUBSCRIBE DRUPAL4LIB First_name Last_name' in the body of an email to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU.

Alternatively you can subscribe by selecting 'Join or Leave the DRUPAL4LIB List' from the DRUPAL4LIB Archives Page:

http://listserv.uic.edu/archives/drupal4lib.html

Everyone is welcome, whether beginner or pro!

LEO

UPDATE: Six hours later and we already have over a hundred subscribers.

Silly Security Questions on Online Forms

People who don't drive might have a problem with the "security" question I came across while applying for a subscription to "Streaming Media": "What was the color of your first car?"

Messing with Leopard

I upgraded my computer to Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard) over Thanksgiving. I'm now getting used to some of the "over 300" improvements in the system.

I think the absolutely best new feature -- in fact the feature that sold me on Leopard -- is Time Machine where back-ups are built into the operating system. For years we've gone around telling people, "Always back up your computer" -- with the likelihood of anyone actually doing it around nil.

Here comes Apple and they make it part of the operating system! Really I think this is the most remarkable thing I've seen since they incorporated iLife into the OS. Amazing stuff.

Happy Blue Beanie Day

 

I support web standards and accessibility -- and so can you!

Kindle Swindle

 Please stop talking about the demise of the traditional book! To do so in the same breath as the Amazon Kindle gives this contraption way more credibility than it’s due.

The defenders of this device say we shouldn’t rush to judgment while at the same time they make such extraordinary associations.

It’s marketing. That’s all.

UPDATE: Ultimately, we're going to describe all the hype surrounding the Amazon Kindle as "The Little Bandwagon Effect That Couldn't".

I mean, Amazon said to the media, 'jump', and the media responded, 'how high'? (Here's a particularly embarrassing example from Businessweek.)

But the public won't have any of this. The level of resistance is due in large part to how far the claims for this device simply defy common sense.

Kindle Schmindle

So every time some new 'ebook' device is announced, we're 'sposed to drop everything and proclaim it a paradigm shift? At least that's the routine.

This week's candidate is the Amazon Kindle -- at least as presented in an article in Newsweek extolling its virtues titled "The Future of Reading" by Steven Levy.

The article is nothing but an uncritical paean to Amazon. The thinking behind it literally is: because Amazon has released the device, ipso facto we're entering "an exciting -- and jarring -- post-Gutenberg era". "The e-book reader," he declares, "is coming of age".

On the other hand, there's no serious analysis of why similar devices have failed in the past or why alternatives such as smartphones and laptops continue to prove more successful.

Instead what we get is a mis-mash of every technical buzzword and concept in the book. Words like "milestone" and "revolution" are mentioned. There's the obligatory iPod analogy. The device is possessed of a "disruptive" nature (well, what isn't these days?) and there's even talk of "Book 2.0".

From there, the author gets totally lost in a discussion of paper vs. electronic and the joys of hypertext (the "always-on book") that could have been written by Vannevar Bush.

All you have to know about the author is that he plunked down $1.99 for an electronic copy of Dickens' "Bleak House" -- a work long out of copyright and available for free at close to a million other sites -- he bought that and thinks he got a bargain ("You can also get classics for a song.")

This is gonzo tech journalism at its worst -- repeated for a day only to be replaced by the next new (under-preforming) device that some media giant wants to shove down our throats.

Update: Here's another example of uncritical stenography -- this time from CNET ...

TECH cocktail 6 (Chicago)

Thursday (11/15) was Tech cocktail 6. It's always great to see so many geeks located in one place. This like earlier Tech cocktails was at John Barleycorn in Wrigleyville.

LISNews Now All Drupal

Blake Carter completed the (momentous) transfer of LISNews from Slashcode to Drupal a while back but I just noticed that he was kind enough to put in a special thank-you to me.

All I did was send him a comment every once in a while. Every system has a specific learning curve. Drupal is no exception. So what I added was easy stuff that by now, he'll have gotten on his own.

The truly herculean task was what he did. Still, it was nice to get a mention.

Um, Welcome to Chicago?

I know the Metra Station at Roosevelt is under construction but can't we do better than this ramshackle shack? You literally have to walk through this structure, hoping it won't tumble over, in order to get from the train platform to Downtown Chicago.

Nov. 4, 2008

Today is a milestone of sorts. It represents the beginning of a year that hopefully will see the departure of the Republicans from the White House and a Democrat elected to take their place. It hopefully will also see gains for the Democrats in the House and Senate.

It's hard to imagine a period in our recent history when there was so much to clean up. On the bright side, polls look good for us. On the not-so-bright side, polls don't elect Democrats to office -- people do. The short version of American Democracy ought to read: It's not going to happen on its own.

So in a sense, today marks a day when we all should be thinking about our own role in the coming year. We all have loads of other responsibilities to take care of. That's a given. But many of us are lucky enough -- or maybe crazy enough or pissed off enough -- to have a little time left over to dedicate to things like this.

The question then is how we want to allocate the time and for whom. Whatever we decide, our country is a better place as a result of our participation.

Three Days Till Doomsday (Mass Transit in Chicago)

Love the subtle messaging of the Chicago Sun-Times. This graphic greeted commuters somewhere halfway in Thursday's paper. The headline read, "3 Days Until Another 'Doomsday".

UPDATE: Doomsday averted. Praise the Lord!