April 29, 2008
Writer's Block
I'm struggling to finish this article for publication... and I just cant decide what should go here. So I have a placemarker, so I know I need to come back to it.
Posted by jez at 01:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 22, 2008
You know you work for an outstanding institution when...
... you have a direct line to the Coffee Gods
Posted by jez at 11:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 28, 2008
Forcing Outlook to Exit
So on a whim this AM I downloaded IE 8 Beta for Giggles, and got one. IE 8 has "Activities," which are a flavor of browser plug ins that allow sharing, emailing, and incorporating things into Facebook and the like. One of those "Activities" is emailing something via Outlook from an Email button on the browser. Clicking that button opens Outlook and resulted in this:
Ha Ha. We all like to Force Outlook to Exit. : )
Posted by jez at 09:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 29, 2008
Prozac for Laptops?
i've been using a loaner laptop for the last month in order to beta test vmware's fusion (first generation MacBook Pro). Pandora is her name, and, bless her heart, she's caused nothing but trouble in the beginning. then, suddenly, she worked just fine. then, she started causing trouble again.
Pandora is clearly bipolar. "ooooh, we're a happy laptop! we are working! look! here's word! Look! here's wireless! look! here's google! look! let's play games! lets do things!"
Then, "no, there is no wireless! there is no word! i dont work! who are you? what do you want? what do you expect from me? life is horrible! turn me off!"
then, "look! i found wireless! look! outlook is running! look! here's some java! let's play solitare! let's connect to the vpn and talk to the cool servers at work!"
then, "no! there is no vpn! i have no IP! what do you mean, you want to print? there is no printing! there is no work! there is no fun! life is horrible! turn me off!"
Here's an example - i am in a meeting, and i desperately want to download and view the ppt offered by our brilliant ADFUSTI. but, Pandora is having a little episode. over the course of one minute, i captured screenshots of her wireless connectivity.
on
off
on
off
just imagine it, blinking on and off like a circus light.
oh, and the Rainbow Swirly of Doom. I see that a lot, too.
oh, and she runs hot. REALLY hot.
She is not a lap friendly laptop. Poor thing.
Sigh.
Posted by jez at 09:53 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
January 28, 2008
The Coolest Thing I've Done All January
Yes, that's VMware's Fusion, allowing me to run MS Word 2007 and XP as an application on OS Tiger. : )
Posted by jez at 09:11 PM | Comments (0)
The Coolest Thing I've Done All January
Yes, that's VMware's Fusion, allowing me to run MS Word 2007 and XP as an application on OS Tiger. : )
Posted by jez at 09:11 PM | Comments (0)
January 10, 2008
Fish 0.5
So Y'all have met Norman, right? The betta fish that sits on my desk? Well, I have a story for you. First off, I love IT people. I really do. I think they're so cool and I wouldnt want to work with anyone else.
Norman comes home with me on our breaks. The library is closed for 2 weeks around xmas, so Norman has to come home, as I'm not going to drop into work just to feed him. He comes home and sits on the entertainment center with all the other fishies.
So I'm transporting Norman, in what I have that best fits the job, a plastic peanut butter jar. Norman is dismayed, i'm sure, but I have this meeting before we can go home, so he's there, in the jar, swimming around next to my laptop as i write the agenda for the meeting on the board. Our webmaster comes in.
We make small talk about vacations and work and time off. And he asks, "What's with that jar next to your laptop?"
"Oh, that's my Betta fish."
He looks confused and asks, "Your prefish? Like version 0.5?"
We stare at each other for a moment. Then I get it. "Oh, no! Betta! It's a Siamese Fighting Fish. Not Beta, like new software."
I think that's the coolest conversation I had all December. : )
Posted by jez at 10:20 PM | Comments (0)
January 04, 2008
He sits on my desk and looks at me.
Let me take a moment to introduce you to Norman F. Norman, world. World, Norman.
I'm back to work today... with a pretty big To Do list. Sigh... ah, well. At least it's super quiet and I have ipod to amuse me while I meander thru my list. Oh, and have I mentioned I now have Sonic the Hedgehog on my ipod? Shhhh, dont tell. =p Actually, i'm really impressed with the game. The graphics are so clear, and it's really easy to play. And a great way to while away the hours in the bank teller line, waiting for the car to run thru the wash, &c (but of course not for work! No, No, Never!).
Am I glad to be back? well... let's see... puttering around the home, crocheting on stuffs, napping, fooling around in the yard, watching the impending rainstorm roll in VS work. Uh, hm. what do *you* think???? Anyways, I've managed to fritter away the last hour making a list, sifting email, and getting irritated with Twitter. I just created an account for giggles, but come to find out, i'm not popular enough to consider keeping it. 3... 2... 1... deleted.
I am still stumped and frustrated about this flickr/ravelry/blog work, and trying to get the three to mash together in one place. I've read more MT documentation than I ever wanted to, which is useless as I have no access to the MT server sitting in the main library at work, which houses my blog. According to flickr and MT, there's this file that should be somewhere, and some setting that should be turned on. And MT is low on the list of Things To Do in IT these days, what with this working thing going on. So, I remain stumped. For now. We'll see what develops.
I got a neato offer from UIUC a few days back - one of the professors there asked me to be a guest lecturer for the online Science Reference course, isn't that cool!?! I'll blah, blah, blah on about science reference questions, and what my job is like. I am pretty tickled because I like to consider myself an Out-Of-The-Box librarian, doing things quite differently from the norm.
Well, back to work for now. I have 9 things to do today... umpteen Rats in my Rats bin that require killing, a few missing books to find, and other, less amusing things. Of it all, only one thing looks fun. Ah, errata....
Posted by jez at 10:04 AM | Comments (1)
December 11, 2007
Report on Sakai Newport 2007
Report on Sakai Newport 2007
Last week I attended the Sakai 2007 conference in Newport Beach, and boy, it was fabulous! I saw some really awesome stuff and met some really dynamic and creative people.
https://sakai.educonference.com/conference/admin/draft_schedule.php
I learned:
Lots of institutions are using project sites for a variety of things. We in the libraries are using it for managing library content and work group information (like the Science Library and Library 101 sites, as well as the Library Staff site), which are common trends. Other academic institutions find the wiki a wonderful collaborative tool to coordinate work outside of meeting times. One school is using a Sakai project site to manage their disaster and emergency preparation information.
Archiving the Sakai content is becoming a thread of discussion. Some are thinking of Institutional Repositories and others are thinking of Digital Libraries. There are concerns that content produced, from research to administration information, should be preserved. What are we thinking of here? Perhaps there is a way the SAT team and the CCDL should work to archive important data currently housed in Sakai.
Lots of schools have migrated course reserve content off eres servers and into Sakai. There seems to be three trends:
1. House objects identified with metadata on a server, and link to the objects in resources
2. Enable staff to have admin access to course sites' resources folders, and populate objects there
3. Enable staff to have admin access to the users' My Workspace resources, and instruct them on how to move content into desired course sites (this could also be an option for document delivery)
The Library at Michigan modified their Web Content tool, titled the 'library help' tool, and made it point to a Meebo widget that then links users to library service desks. Faculty add it to their course sites in the 'site info/edit tools' area. They've had 230 sites add it this semester and have noticed an increase in chat reference traffic.
http://www.lib.umich.edu/help/ctools/library_help.html
It was REALLY cool seeing all the techie gadgets, phones, cool software, cool hardware, and nearly everyone but the vendors in jeans with their 'moffice' (mobile office/backpack) plugged in and working. I felt at home with my ilk.
I'm REALLY glad I don't have to drive to Newport Beach everyday. Omg, that's exhausting.
The Sakaibrary Project is creating a subject guide tool that will enable the assigning of metadata tags to resources and then dynamically building a list of resources relevant to those tags. You can tag anything from a document to a database to a journal to a webpage...
http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/projects/sakai/
I got my first text message reference question to my phone while at the conference.
The citation tool integrates with open URL technology to incorporate objects found using open URLs from library tools and Google Scholar into the resources of Sakai sites. We would need to turn on open URLs in Blais for us to use this effectively with our books at Claremont.
Wimba is a really neat web conferencing classroom tool that enables virtual online classroom sessions with cobrowsing and all kinds of fun features.
http://wimba.com/
My presentation on Integrating Library Resources into Sakai http://tinyurl.com/24uma9 was well attended, and I felt honored to speak to such brilliant and creative people. The Claremont Colleges participated in a total of 6 presentations. http://tinyurl.com/3dovy5
We had a fabulous discussion with a selection of users from small schools. Among other things, we think that small schools are good places to beta test tools as our user base is smaller facilitating discussion, trials and new ideas. We would ask for new tools from the larger developer bases from the larger schools. We also discussed the thought that smaller schools would be a good place to try new pedagogies and teaching strategies that can be shared back to the larger community. Pedagogy is a large, upcoming trend in the Sakai community.
Want to see pics? Go to http://flickr.com/ and search for sakainewport07
Posted by jez at 11:07 PM | Comments (0)
October 16, 2007
Yea, I exist
Finally got a new battery for my camera... so the pics will start coming in again.
been quite busy with work, lately. working on several projects, a few articles here and there, and a conference presentation. i'm really excited about the conference presentation (no kidding!) although it is a lot of work, but because this is one place where i'm an innovator. see, we have this content management system called Sakai here at work, and not only have i created lots of library handouts n stuff in there, but i've been teaching it and using it as a networking tool with my faculty and staff. it's been fun... but keeping me out of trouble, and out of fun.
i've also been lucky enough to get involved with the teaching and learning writing initiative here, and boy, that has been, and will continue to be, a real eye opener! it's all about creating writing in courses as a learning tool, and i am getting a lot of ideas on how to incorporate writing into my own library sessions, but more than anything this set of workshops will impact my own ability to write. i'm looking forward to implementing some of the things i've learned in my next set of writing. we're basing our sessions around Engaging Ideas by John Bean, which is a great read and full of some neat ideas. this whole writing workshop is inspiring me to write more, in general, so i gather this will mean i'll be extrapolating here more often, peppering my little bloggy woggy with text in addition to pics of crochet stuffs.
heading off home here in a few days... cant wait! I miss civilized food and i'm eager for breakfast burritos at Millies and the Frontier (my once fav hangout), some Cracker Barrel (a luxury we do without out here. someone please explain that to me, cuz i dont get it), and hanging with the fam. My sis is coming down, of course Dad n Stepmom will be around, and so will my Gramma! it's actually all in honor of her - she's turning 90 next week, and we're all surprising her with a visit! I assume it's safe to write about that here, as I'm sure Gramma doesnt ever look at my blog. : )
Today is Yarn Lunch... Ruth and I will hang out in the dining hall and encourage our students to come craft with us. It's chilly today... good day for a snuggly jacket and some yarn to crochet on. Working on a doily right now; size 3 thread and a size 1 steel hook. fun combo.
k, nuff for now. should go put $$$ on my card so I can eat, which I very much want to do right now.
oh, and since this is Random Ramblings of a Crocheting Librarian... here's some bookmarks I've made for an upcoming craft fair. Just to keep it on topic. : )
Posted by jez at 10:37 AM | Comments (0)
September 13, 2007
I teach, you know...
So I do teach quite a bit as an instruction librarian in the sciences, and sometimes things just don't go right.
So Tuesday I got 20 minutes during an engineering class to introduce some of our indexing tools. The room setup wasnt fabulous; I like to go point to the screen, then go click on links and whatnot, and generally wander around. This room setup had me with the screen behind me beyond many cords on the floor and sideways to my little laptop, who was sitting on a table about thigh level. I couldnt really see well what was going on.
I'm going on and on about this and that, and I begin by pulling up Scifinder Scholar to demo some of it's finer features (this is something I don't use very often, as it technically belongs to the chemistry librarian, which I am not). Scifinder is special in that it requires software hosted on your machine that connects to the ACS database in order to allow for the drawing of chemical structures. I go to my applications folder and initiate the software, talking while it's loading about our concurrent users limit. I glance behind me at the screen and click on the highlighted blue button to continue, talk a bit more, and turn around and the software is gone. I say, "Hmm, interesting" and reload it, talk some more. I go through the same process, and click on the same blue button, resulting in a titter of laughter from the class (which should have been my first warning sign). Yes, the software is gone again. This time I ask outloud and mostly to myself, "Well, now were did it go? Why did that happen?" Suggested from a third row student, "You're clicking Decline instead of Accept." Ooooooooh, Duh. Well, at least our brilliant Mudders read....
So I go on, successfully clicking the right damned button this time.
We move on. I pull up the keyword feature and input my selected term, "biodiesel," suggested by the audience. 3 results. From a major term, I should've had way more. I begin to talk about how to think creatively about keyword synonyms to maximize search variables, and I ask the students, "Now what would you do?" Suggested from a first row student, "Well, I'd spell the keyword right in the first place."
Note to self - pay more attention, and practice spelling keywords BEFORE the session so I sort of look like I know what I'm doing... *LOL*
Posted by jez at 06:22 AM | Comments (1)
June 06, 2006
New Words for 2006 - Essential Vocab for the Workplace
got this a bunch of months ago, and in cleaning out my joke email box, i decided this was certainly worthy of further dissemination on the Internet. i am particularly fond of 'seagull manager' and 'percussive maintenance'. additionally, i certainly identify with Salmon Days and working just below the Adminisphere.
************************************************************************************************************************
Essential vocabulary additions for the workplace (and elsewhere)
1. BLAMESTORMING: Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline
was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.
2. SEAGULL MANAGER: A manager, who flies in, makes a lot of noise,
craps on everything, and then leaves.
3. ASSMOSIS: The process by which some people seem to absorb success
and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.
4. SALMON DAY: The experience of spending an entire day swimming
upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.
5. CUBE FARM: An office filled with cubicles
6. PRAIRIE DOGGING: When someone yells or drops something loudly in a
cube farm, and people's heads pop over the walls to see what's going
on.
7. MOUSE POTATO: The on-line, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.
8. SITCOMs: Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What
Yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops
working to stay home with the kids.
9. STRESS PUPPY: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.
10. SWIPEOUT: An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless
because the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.
11. XEROX SUBSIDY: Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one's workplace.
12. IRRITAINMENT: Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying
but you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The J-Lo and Ben
wedding (or not) was a prime example - Michael Jackson, another...
13. PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE: The fine art of whacking the crap out of
an electronic device to get it to work again.
14. ADMINISPHERE : The rarefied organizational layers beginning just
above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are
often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were
designed to solve.
15. 404: Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error
Message "404 Not Found," meaning that the requested site could not be
located.
16. GENERICA: Features of the American landscape that are exactly the
same no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls,
and subdivisions.
17. OHNOSECOND: That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize
that you've just made a BIG mistake. (Like after hitting send on an
email by mistake)
18. WOOFS: Well-Off Older Folks.
19. CROP DUSTING: Surreptitiously passing gas while passing through a Cube Farm.
Posted by jez at 07:18 AM | Comments (0)