Archive for December, 2008

99 things meme

December 22, 2008

I haven’t done a meme before and this one care of Ruminations seemed relevant given the time of year.

THE 99 THINGS MEME

Things you’ve already done: bold
Things you want to do: italicize
Things you haven’t done and don’t want to – leave in plain font.

1. Started your own blog.

2. Slept under the stars.

3. Played in a band.

4. Visited Hawaii.

5. Watched a meteor shower.

while sleeping under the stars- as a kid.

6. Given more than you can afford to charity.

7. Been to Disneyland/world.

8. Climbed a mountain.

9. Held a praying mantis.

10. Sang a solo.

11. Bungee jumped.

12. Visited Paris.

13. Watched a lightning storm at sea.

14. Taught yourself an art from scratch.

15. Adopted a child.

16. Had food poisoning.

17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty.

18. Grown your own vegetables.

19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France.

20. Slept on an overnight train.

21. Had a pillow fight.

22. Hitch hiked.

23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill.

24. Built a snow fort.

25. Held a lamb.

26. Gone skinny dipping.

27. Run a marathon.

28. Ridden a gondola in Venice.

Been to Venice but the price of a gondola ride seemed excessive (regretted the decision)

29. Seen a total eclipse.

30. Watched a sunrise or sunset.

31. Hit a home run.

32. Been on a cruise.

Been sailing for a few weeks on a yacht but a cruise on one of those large ships seems boring.

33. Seen Niagara Falls in person.

34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors.

England- Cornwall

35. Seen an Amish community.

36. Taught yourself a new language.

37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied.

Are we ever really?

38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person.

39. Gone rock climbing.

40. Seen Michelangelo’s David in person.

41. Sung Karaoke.

42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt.

43. Bought a stranger a meal in a restaurant.

44. Visited Africa.

45. Walked on a beach by moonlight.

46. Been transported in an ambulance.

With a kid- not to be desired

47. Had your portrait painted.

48. Gone deep sea fishing.

49. Seen the Sistene (sic) chapel in person.

50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

51. Gone scuba diving or snorkelling.

52. Kissed in the rain.

53. Played in the mud.

54. Gone to a drive-in theatre.

55. Been in a movie.

56. Visited the Great Wall of China.

57. Started a business.

We are always making plans for tourist things in rural locations but reality keeps us in the city

58. Taken a martial arts class

59. Visited Russia.

60. Served at a soup kitchen.

61. Sold Girl Scout cookies.

62. Gone whale watching.

63. Gotten flowers for no reason.

Well it was one flower- nicked from a neighbour’s garden but it was a rose so that counts right?

64. Donated blood.

65. Gone sky diving.

66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp.

67. Bounced a cheque.

Entirely in error of course.

68. Flown in a helicopter.

69. Saved a favorite childhood toy.

70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial.

71. Eaten Caviar.

72. Pieced a quilt.

73. Stood in Times Square.

74. Toured the Everglades.

75. Been fired from a job.

But I left one after one day on the understanding that it just wasn’t going to work out.

76. Seen the Changing of the Guard in London.

77. Broken a bone.

A very small one- in a toe. I had almost forgotten.

78. Been on a speeding motorcycle.

79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person.

80. Published a book.

81. Visited the Vatican.

82. Bought a brand new car.

83. Walked in Jerusalem.

84. Had your picture in the newspaper.

A local paper – as a kid

85. Read the entire Bible.

86. Visited the White House.

87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating.

88. Had chickenpox.

89. Saved someone’s life.

That would be that someone needed saving- not  to be desired

90. Sat on a jury.

Was called but not selected.

91. Met someone famous.

Define famous – would Mark Oliphant be close enough? Famous in science and South Australia

92. Joined a book club.

93. Lost a loved one.

94. Had a baby.

95. Seen the Alamo in person.

96. Swum in the Great Salt Lake.

97. Been involved in a law suit.

98. Owned a cell phone.

99. Been stung by a bee.

There are many things that I would like to do that are not on this list. Perhaps I should start a bucket list.

Ode to a lappy: Part 2

December 11, 2008

I wrote about how much my laptop was helping my productivity and online learning in June.

from spcummings Flickr

from spcummings Flickr

Well yesterday it broke.  Apparently it is something on the motherboard and needs to be looked at by Dell – which could take a few days.  I was grateful that it wasn’t the hard drive because, even though I KNOW different, a large proportion isn’t backed up anywhere.  My IT colleagues have lent me a replacement laptop and transferred the contents of the desktop folder on the old hard drive to this one.

So I am operational – somewhat. Which is actually the point of this post.

I have admin rights but because I only have the loaner for a few days I am not going to install everything that I have on the old laptop or bother IT to image the old machine. I am missing quite a bit and it’s slowing me down but not necessarily stopping me. I thought I would start a list of the bits that I am missing from the corporate image provided. It could help me in the future recreate my machine if necessary and it will let you know what I use every day. (BTW its a long list.)

  • Voyager (library software) circulation module. This is absolutely necessary and I had to reinstall it.
  • Firefox bookmarks – I have only been saving a my research bookmarks to Delicious not the bookmarks in my toolbar that I use everyday. I will be changing this as a back up.
  • Firefox plugins  and  bookmarklets- delicious and google email/share are the ones that I am missing most so far. WordPress “press this” bookmarklets for the different blogs.
  • desktop widgets- I have been using a small set of Yahoo widgets to monitor things like wifi access
  • software for the Dymo label writer
  • webcam software (could work without it but it adds a dimension to phone calls and meetingplace)
  • iTunes- I can’t sync my iPhone at the moment
  • desktop feeds- I have been using Feeddemon and trying out Outlook 2007 to access our firewalled feeds from our blogs and wiki.
  • Procite and Endnote- used to help clients work out issues but also to maintain publication lists for my division
  • Snagit- really missing as I am trying to write an induction powerpoint and have to update the screen shots.
  • Adobe Acrobat. We send out a lot by PDF and some need editing.
  • Irfanview found it
  • Pidgen for IM but I do have MSN
  • Skype
  • Picassa and Flickr uploader
  • WinSCP – to load themes and plugins for our WordPressMU installation
  • Dreamweaver
  • Windows media player classic- not everything will play in windows media player
  • Office 2007. The corporate default is 2003 and I was allowed to try out 2007 to test the RSS feeds in Outlook 2007. Despite everyone hating it and some initial frustrations I have rapidly got to like the new layouts epecially the categoires and task management in Outlook. I was heading to “inbox zero” as a benefit.

There are also some things that are desktop versions of some apps that I use to get content to my iPhone:

  • Stanza
  • Audible
  • Toodledo sync
  • Splashshopper (list maker)
  • Evernote

There is probably more but that’s what has come to mind after 24 hours. What would you miss most?

The one conference and one keynote I wish I was at

December 3, 2008

We don’t get many (any) tech librarian conferences coming to this city. And we rarely get the resources to go interstate let alone overseas.

The program for the next Information Online conference in Sydney wasn’t exiting enough to motivate me to compete for a place to go at the time that I needed to apply. I am regretting that somewhat now.

However when I saw the program for Online Information in London (happening right now) I thought “wow”. It had names I recognized and would kill to be able to hear. But it wasn’t going to happen.

Thankfully one of those same people is blogging the sessions. Shifted’s post of Clay Shirkey’s keynote is long and comprehensive and almost fills the gap for me. I was greatly impress by a video I saw of his presentation at Web 2.0 Expo NY “It’s Not Information Overload. It’s Filter Failure.” Its message resonated with the role that Information Specialists are trying to do here.

As I said Shifted’s post is long, but worth reading right to the end where, in response to a question, Clay discusses a librarian’s role in the new world of online communities.