The Librarian's Lounge

Event planning

I recently volunteered to post events for a local organization across various event websites. In the process, I started thinking about how no particular event site really seems to be standing out at this point in time. You can find events listings everywhere: MySpace, Facebook, your local newspaper sites, Eventful, Upcoming, Meetup, Google Calendars, etc. But you either have to check them all frequently to stay on top of what's posted on each, or subscribe to rss feeds for your interests at all of them and wade through them in your reader, which may speed up the process but doesn't lend itself to spontaneous browsing. To make it easier on those looking for events, most of these events sites have ways for the user to export the event to a calendar, email, and/or social networking site. As an event creator, though, what I really need is a tool that will allow me to create an event once and then post it to all these other sites without having to re-create it on each.

I've spent the last 3 days looking for such a tool and can't find one. I did find a good summary of my problem posted on Microformats, so at least I know I'm not the only one noticing a lack of options for this situation. If I knew more programming, it seems like it'd be easy for me to create something that would do this for me. After all, if users can push information to their many online profiles and accounts, how can there not be an event aggregator publishing tool? Plus, it looks like most of the sites use the hcalendar markup standard. Maybe I'm just missing something.

Perhpas there is a for-fee service somewhere. Mashable's list of 35 tools for events had a few for businesses that hinted at being able to do such a thing, for a fee.

I'm investigating Microsoft/Windows Live to see if there's anything there that might help. I will continue to do more research to see if there's already a freely available tool for this out there. In the meantime, maybe the best I can do is customize a startup page for myself that includes all the sites where I will post events listings.

Tweet!

I decided to break down and investigate Twitter today, after a long period of resistance due to a fear of extra time-suckage. What led me to do it today? Two things: Internet Librarian 2008 is coming up and I want to be connected to people there, and this article about how Twitter is still going strong. Curiosity has, at long last, gotten the better of me about the twittersphere. You can find me here. Note the missing "s" in my user name - I was one letter short of being able to use the full title of my blog, ergo the trim.

I'm still getting used to Typepad's upgraded interface, but I have to say I really like it! The composing window is much more user-friendly now.

My latest online find is SLG Publishing, the publisher of my current graphic novel favorite, Rex Libris. It's pure genius. SLG has lots of interesting titles, it turns out, and I put in my first order with them today. I found Rex at a local library, but can't find much else by this publisher available this way. I figure this is a good investment for me professionally, though, since I'd really like to expand my knowledge of graphic novels and manga in general. As far as Rex goes - it's funny, well-written, has awesome illustrations and is intelligent to boot - what more could one ask for? Rex is my new hero. 

Taking the plunge

Because I am a very lucky girl, I am getting a mostly-paid opportunity to attend Internet Librarian in Monterey this year for the first time. I'm very excited about this! As I started planning how I would blog from there, I pondered the fact that both my laptops (the one I bought 8 years ago for library school and the Dell I bought last year) are rather too heavy for me to tote around all day long.

I decided to buy an ASUS (pronounced "Ah-ZEUS," I finally found out today) eeePC. And, after the last fiasco with Vista, I chose to invest in a Linux machine.  

I bought my eeepc 900 online and received it about 3 weeks ago. As I am not someone who is happy not tinkering with my toys, I quickly went to town downloading the essential tweaks and poring over user forums. Although the Xandros version looks, on the surface, similar to Windows in its setup, there is a lot to learn if you want to experience the full potential of this machine.

Learning Linux for the first time is exciting, challenging, frustrating, rewarding, and painful all at once. Using the command line takes me back to when I learned Basic when I was a kid - I loved writing my own programs back then. I could tell right away that my learning curve would be somewhat steep, but I find it's fun, since I'm doing it for myself and there's not really a deadline or anything depending on me getting up to speed with it. Plus, as I learned yesterday after messing around with the system for 3 weeks as a total n00b, it really is quite easy to restore the machine to factory settings. Although it did take me a while to figure out that the trick with the reset is that you have to hit the F9 key repeatedly while it is booting up to get to the proper screen. Holding F9 down continuously or pressing it once doesn't work.

So yes, I have killed the eeepc already once, but I figure it's all part of the learning process. No harm done, and now that I'm re-doing things, I understand what I'm doing a lot better and can see where I went wrong previously.

I love how small and lightweight this computer is. I carry it with me often, now, and it's no more of a burden than carrying a hardcover book. It's the perfect solution for me in terms of a traveling pc. I was immediately impressed by how quickly I got it up and running - seriously, not five minutes after unpacking it, I had it up and online. I've never had it this easy with a Windows machine.

Info for new users:

1. Get familiar with this forum.There are some great people answering questions there.
2. Use this tweaking guide. (for Linux version)
3. Cut your nails to make typing on the small keyboard easier.
4. Refer to the wiki - there's lot of help there!
5. If you come to hate Xandros, there are plenty of other Linux flavors set up for the eeepc you can try.
6. This site for downloading programs doesn't work for older eeepc versions yet.
7. The online free storage doesn't work for older machines yet either.
8. Firefox 2 and 3 don't play nicely together on the same machine. I learned from experience.
9. Shift+Insert replaces Ctrl+V in Linux. Use the up arrow to bring up previously-typed information.
10. In Linux, it's very easy to fix Firefox quirks like using the backspace key to go back a page. Just Google what you want to fix. Toggling F11 will also give you more viewing space on your screen for the browser. 
11. Use the Synaptic Package Manager in the Linux version if you want to download and install new programs. Installing software from various websites that was supposed to be compatible is what caused me to eventually kill my machine. Synaptic is already installed on your machine when you get it.
12. If you have problems with the wifi, a quick toggle of FN+F2 might be enough to reset your internal adapter and get it working again. There's a whole list of things to try for wifi issues on the wiki.

Today's Update

I know, it's been a long time coming.

I just discovered a new artist whose music was featured in the film "Loving Annabelle" - Jake Newton. Wow. I went directly to CDBaby and bought his album online. I love his sound. I hope to hear much more from him.

While I was on CDBaby, I noticed they now have a Film Baby site where you can buy independently released movies. What a great idea! I'm always looking for new interesting documentaries and films, so I'm psyched to have learned about this today.

I've spent the last couple days beefing up my podcast subscriptions and have found some great ones. I usually do most of my podcast listening when I'm weeding books out of my collection and have managed to finally get through the This American Life archives after several years of listening. I really need to donate some money to them. One thing I've really taken notice of while browsing for interesting podcasts is how many of the ones that sound the most appealing have gone defunct for lack of money. Although most of their archives are still available online, it's disturbing to see how many radio shows have been abandoned because of funding issues. One really great site I just found that had led me to many great shows is Public Radio Fan. The coolest thing about that site is that the homepage shows you what's on the radio now around the world and provides links to those that are available online for instant listening, along with links to podcasts and homepages of the shows. I've done extensive searching on that site over the past couple days and have found it to be very up to date and useful. Among my discoveries this weekend are Joe Frank, Outfront, Third Coast Audio International Festival, All in the Mind, and Curious Orange. Suddenly I am struck with the same depressing dilemma I have with books - too many awesome podcasts, too little time before I die to hear it all.

Dell/Vista glitches and Kubler-Ross

Two nights ago, I received a message from my computer alerting me to the fact that some of the files associated with my user profile were corrupted. The result was that all my links on my desktop disappeared, as did my Quickstart toolbar. As this is a brand new Dell laptop and it sounded pretty serious, I decided to see what I could do to fix it.

First, I tried to do what Vista told me to, which was to run Chkdisk. It wouldn't let me do so. And although it offered to let me set up a schedule to run it, it wouldn't follow up on that promise either. So I used my Dell Support Center to scan my laptop. It found no problems. But upon restarting the machine, the problems still existed. I decided it was time to give Dell Support Chat a try, since I paid for a ton of customer support with my purchase.

I was connected to "Deepti," a technician to whom I wound up allowing remote access to my laptop. I sat back and watched as this person took control of my computer. Now, I don't confess to be a computer genius, but I know enough to be able to spot a person who doesn't have a clue when it comes to my technical issue. It was as if this person was reading a manual to try and fix my problem. She couldn't even locate the start button, which was prominently featured on the top left hand corner of my screen. My confidence that this problem was going to be easily fixed began to plummet. It was obvious that she didn't have any experience solving this type of problem. And after watching her fumble around on my laptop, I wondered exactly what skills she did have.

Then Deepti called me on the phone. She had a very thick Indian accent and was difficult to understand. I couldn't make out about half of what she said. She had me insert the OS disc that came with my Dell and restart my machine holding down the F12 key. I found myself looking at a screen that said "Install Vista." What?! Wait a minute, here. I said, "Are you telling me I need to reinstall Vista?" She affirmed this like it was no big deal. Disbelief and denial, the first of Kubler-Ross' stages of grief, set in. I asked further, "Are you saying I need to reformat my laptop because of this?" She put me on hold. In the silence, I thought, this can't be happening. I can't possibly need to reformat my entire computer over a few corrupted files. Deepti came back - yes, this is what I must do. Stage 2: Anger. I told her I didn't have anything backed up - was I really going to lose all my files, everything I'd installed since I started using my computer? She put me on hold. When she came back, she said I'd only lose a couple settings and that I'd only lose the documents that were listed in my start toolbar. Skeptical of this technician's understanding of the real issues at this point, I said, "So you're saying I won't lose the files off the computer, just the links to a few of them in the start menu?" She put me on hold. This time, she came back and said I'd lose everything, so I needed to save my data and reinstall Vista. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The mere thought of how long it was going to take me to backup and reinstall everything and make it work like it used to - let's just say I was less than pleased. I told her how frustrated I was with that solution and asked, "Isn't there anything else I can do?" The third stage, bargaining, set in when I asked her if I could continue to use my laptop in spite of the corrupted files. She said yes. And put me on hold again to see if there was another solution. Then she wanted remote access to my computer again, to "see the exact message" I was getting.

After sitting in dead space on the phone for another 15 minutes and watching her do nothing with the remote access, I decided that I'd call it a night. The process took 1.5 hours and nothing was solved. The woman never offered to transfer me to someone who understood the problem better. I felt like I was stuck with a rep who had only taken PC101 and had no way to reach anyone with any more knowledge. And I hadn't the foggiest idea how serious my problem really was. I approached grieving stage four, depression, and just gave up for the night.

I guess, today, I have reached the testing stage, in which I've been exploring the laptop from the distance of another administrative user account, to try and gauge the extent of the damage. It seems like I can get to most of my stuff from there, save for some things I had stored right on my desktop. I did some google searching on "Vista corrupt files" and see now that I'm not the only one experiencing this issue. And yes, a fresh install seems to be the way to go. I've teetered briefly into acceptance, but it's tending to take me straight back to denial - I just can't believe I have to reformat my entire computer over this problem. And that leads to stage 2 - I mean, wtf, Microsoft? Why are you releasing software this unstable?!

I should really switch to Linux. How's that for acceptance?

Coupland on YouTube

Douglas Coupland has some book trailers on YouTube for his book, The Gum Thief. Here's one of my favorites in the series:

Virtual Workspaces

Sun Microsystems has just produced a short film that demonstrates one of their new workspaces, MPK20. Watching it really gives you a sense of how these virtual platforms can enhance and create new ways for employees to collaborate regardless of their physical location. You can learn more about their project here. Although I thought some of the audio overlap present in the video was distracting, I'll bet it's just a matter of doing a little tweaking to get that fixed while working in MPK20. Indeed, the audio environment of this workspace seems pretty advanced and conducive to all types of use. While watching this video, I kept thinking, here's a company that really gets it. They're not introducing something new just for the sake of it being new, but because they have found ways to apply this new technology to their work in a way that will actually help them and enhance their company's productivity.

In other news, I've finally gotten myself on the reference desk schedule in Second Life's Info Island. I'm going to start with a 2-hour stint once a week. Feel free to come ask me your burning reference questions this coming Thursday, November 15th, on the island from 6-8 second-life-time (Pacific time).

I'm looking forward to checking out Cleveland Public Library's new sim in SL, which opens next Friday.

IL 2007

Oh, Internet Librarian 2007, I am sorry I missed you. Perhaps we will meet next year. In the meantime, I've heard some great things about the conference from several of my colleagues who came back bursting with enthusiasm and frustration - enthusiasm for all the great new technology out there and dreams of what our library could be doing with it; frustration from being unable to go forward with almost all of it due to IS constraints that are out of our library's control. One of those returning made what I thought was a very important point today during a meeting - 2.0 technology is already the norm. It's not new anymore. And our library in particular (although I'm sure there are many others with the same problem) is getting more behind the times every day because of some very unreasonable web filtering that keeps staff from becoming web 2.0 literate. Which, of course, keeps us from helping our community with it. What's the easiest way to make a librarian's life a living hell? Take away their freedom to access information.

Anyway, one of the neatest things I heard about from the conference is The Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenberg County's fine-payer for teens in Teen Second Life. Apparently, they have something like an ATM that the teens can use in-world to pay off their fines. What I love about this idea is that it's practical, it's located in a place where teens already are ("go where your users are"), and it has the potential to be used in some rather creative ways. Okay, they can pay off their fines in Lindens; now how about extending the service by making it possible for them to work off their fines in-world by reading, building, scripting, hosting events, etc.? It's great that this public library has taken initiative to reach their teen population in Teen Second Life. Here's hoping that more libraries will see the importance of creating a presence in virtual worlds in order to stay relevant to the part of the population who could become life-long library users.

SL's new CSI-interface and other news

If you are a Second Lifer and haven't had a chance to try out the new CSI interface yet, go get it! It has massive improvements. My favorite is that you can surf the net while still within SL - it opens in a sizeable window just like your inventory does, allowing you to stay in-world and use the web simultaneously. This is one small thing that goes a long way into making SL a more seamless experience. It's especially nice when you are visiting educational or library-related lands and you receive notecards or touch items that contain external links. It also makes it very convenient for bringing up calendars related to in-world events and slurls that are mentions in articles and blog postings. In addition, the CSI version includes an address bar for website addresses that automatically launches the in-world browser.

The CSI interface has renamed some of the buttons you see in the Linden version of SL and re-positioned some of them as well, all in order to make it more intuitive for new users. They also vamped up the overall design to make it look sleeker, more stylish. The toolbar options have changed as well, generally becoming smaller in options and less confusing.

The new interface was created by the Electric Sheep Company and is called the OnRez viewer. Although their website says you need to register at the CSI CBS site in order to get the software, you can also get it by using your regular SL viewer to visit here.

I haven't gotten around to actually playing the CSI-related game, which is what led to the development of this tool. Regardless, until the regular interface catches up with this one, I'll be using CSI's as my default interface from now on.

As an aside, I've just recently discovered the wealth of calendars available through Google that relate to events in Second Life, some that aren't easily found in-world. This has always been a huge frustration for me - knowing that there are events going on that I somehow haven't tapped in to. Between the calendars and joining the SLED group and educator's listserv, I feel much more connected to how SL is being utilized and explored by librarians, teachers, scientists, and so on. There was an open house on Infotainment Island this weekend that highlighted how science, in particular, can be taught and experienced within this realm. I just heard about the SaLamander HUD today, which also relates to discovering SL science experiments and projects, and am curious to try it out.

Some interesting news items have popped up recently about how people relate to their avatars. These two related articles are about virtual crime, griefers, and how in-world actions affected the real-life feelings and actions of those involved. There was this article on a couple who divorced after finding out they'd been having an affair in Second Life - with each other. There was an interesting blog post I read the other day and now can't find (must have forgot to star it in my Google Reader) about a woman's reaction to trying on a "normal"-looking shape in Second Life and her negative reaction to it (anyone know the source?). I've also stumbled upon an Avatar Identity Research Center in Second Life run by a professor - it should be interesting to see what develops there. Avatars and identity is a hot topic right now. It'll be interesting to see how research findings will shape the way people will interact in the future and how moral, legal, and criminal perspectives on virtual worlds will evolve.

Back in SL and What's on the Telly

So I broke down, after a month without Second Life, and bought myself a Dell laptop. I love it. It's got a 17 inch monitor, good sound, 3 gigs of RAM, and SL works like a charm on it. I'm getting back in the swing of things and hope to start volunteering for Info Island on a regular basis soon. Right now, I've got to figure out what my avatar will wear for Halloween - it's a toss-up between a cigarette girl and a zombie 1950's sock hop girl at the moment. I'm also looking forward to trying geocaching soon - both in real life and in second life! Yesterday, I even watched a ballet in SL - it was a very crowded event and certainly a unique one.

I was really hoping that Mojopac would be the answer to working around our current IT limits on our OPACs for Second Life. Alas, our security is set so high that it's still unworkable.

Check out this clip for the new Librarians TV show down under: