Archive for December, 2005
Digg Fights Spam
December 31st, 2005Yup! Digg is getting so popular that they are in the midst of spam and fraud control. According to their blog, they are turning to their users in an attempt to do this:
“We have developed and deployed systems to help combat this fraud/spam in various ways. In fact, we have new automated fraud control [...]
Performancing, Oh How I Love Thee
December 31st, 2005I just realized that if you want to publish to your blog via Performancing (and why wouldn’t you? This is one of the best plug-ins for Firefox. Ever! Hands Down! [you get the idea]) and don’t want to ‘right click’, just use the F8 key and (Boom!), the tool will launch. [...]
More on Comment Feeds
December 31st, 2005Does anyone know a quick fix (hack?) on how to provide a feed for comments in Typepad? Sarah Houghton at LibrarianInBlack posed the question and I didn’t see any comments (well, I only checked once and can’t get a feed to find out if her question will be answered in the near future, [...]
Ah, The Joys of Commuting to NYC
December 30th, 2005I was on this train…thank goodness nobody was hurt.
On another note, thank you to the conductor on the LIRR who found my cell phone, answered it when I called, turned it off to save juice (which came in handy calling home while stuck on the aforementioned train) and gave it back unharmed on the ride [...]
SplogSpot
December 29th, 2005If you’re really into Splogs (spam blogs) or wish to eradicate or track them, take a look at SplogSpot. While I think this is a futile exercise, it may help somewhat. My favorite part? An RSS feed for the weekly updated splogs.
About the service:
“SplogSpot mainly feeds on the blacklist that Pingoat generates. [...]
Writing a Book is Not Easy
December 28th, 2005I was about to post an interesting quote from Joyce Carol Oates and decided against it at the last minute. Then I read Meredith Farkas’s post on her foray into book writing. Here’s what she has to say:
“[M]y big fear is that it won’t be good. It’s one thing to write a sucky [...]
A Feed is Born
December 27th, 2005A Feed Is Born - RSS, Webfeeds and Information Overload!
How do I NOT subscribe to this one, based on the title alone. Now, maybe I shouldn’t judge a blog by its title…(link via Furl)
Comment Feeds
December 26th, 2005I’m finding myself going back and looking at comments I’ve made on other blogs (I’m starting to do this more these days) and I’ve noticed that I can’t get feeds for comments made to many librarian blogs (I’m not talking about individual feeds for each post (too mush work for me as a reader), but [...]
Social Software for Research (Reprise)
December 26th, 2005Steven Bell asked me to clarify how I use tagging systems for research purposes:
“I find that the tags are usually far too broad to help much with “keeping up” on a particular topic. For example, there are tags for “college” or “university” which yield far too broad results. What I really want is “higher education” [...]
Do You Use Tagging Services for Research?
December 25th, 2005Tagging sites like del.icio.us, I think, are underestimated in terms of on-going research. I am in the process of an investigation into the concept of building communities and social capital. Thus, I have set up news searches (free and fee), blog searches (the usual suspects) and grabbed a few RSS tags from del.icio.us and Furl [...]
Hallie and Adam
December 25th, 2005
DSC00334
Originally uploaded by stevenmcohen.
Hallie and Adam celebrating Chanukah
browsr
December 25th, 2005
browsr
Originally uploaded by stevenmcohen.
Despite the typical missing ‘e’ in the title (poor little ‘e’ - missing out on the new Web) and the one word/phrase slogans (People. Powered. Directory), the concept of browsr is something that I’ve been anticipating for quite a while.
From the about page:
“From the [...]
Must Purchase
December 24th, 2005I’m buying a lot of books lately and Communities in Cyberspace is one that I will definitely need for future projects. From the Amazon.com review:
“Editors Smith and Kollock have gathered contributors with a variety of viewpoints to examine both the “legitimacy” of community in cyberspace and to question how it operates. While the authors [...]
Top 5 Reasons Why I’m Not Doing a Top 10 List for 2005
December 24th, 2005Note: This will be my last diatribe. For now on, Library Stuff will contain content on resources, tools, and other information on keeping current. You will no longer see any posts like the ones that I wrote this week (comments like this will be reserved to others’ blog entries on these topics) about [...]
More Stuff I found today
December 24th, 2005+ World 66 - “We have setup World66, an open content travel guide, where people from all over the planet can write about the places they love, the hotels they stayed in, the restaurants that have eaten. Every part of the travel guide can be edited directly, just click the [edit] button and go ahead. [...]
PC World on Web 2.0 (kinda)
December 23rd, 2005PC World has a feature article on the “New, Improved Web”, where they talk about many “Web 2.0″ tools. The article isn’t due out in print until Feb 2006, which is probably on newsstands now (never really understood how that works).
“Like a child progressing into adolescence, the Web has entered a new era of sophistication. [...]
Kevin Burton on New Attensa Aggregator
December 23rd, 2005Kevin Burton played with the closed beta version of the new web-based aggregator from Attensa today and wasn’t thrilled, but remains optimistic. I hope to get my invite this week.
Kevin is right about web-aggregators. In such a crowded market, these new tools need to do something more than just aggregate content. Two that I think [...]
The Glories of K-12 Blogging
December 22nd, 2005David Rothman, whose blog I’ve recently become reaquainted with, links to a column written by a teacher who had initial thoughts about classroom blogs and then, after playing with the medium and having a sit down with her son, had second thoughts:
“In the beginning, I thought blogging was, by definition, a break from serious reading [...]
Chicago Libraries Map
December 22nd, 2005The Web is going map happy these days and libraries are adding to the fun. Take a look at the Chicago Libraries Map, which not only includes libraries, but museuems colleges and theaters. I hope the CPL knows about this.
The Best of Bookmarks
December 22nd, 2005This one from New West is getting some play in the literature blog circles (My litblog has fallen off my work radar - no time). I love the idea of going through my bookmarks and writing an article or blog post about them. In my case, I’d be tredging through all of my del.icio.us and [...]
Some Stuff I Found Today
December 21st, 2005From various sources…(forgot to mark which ones - sorry). Note: I haven’t tested out any of these.
+ Coastr - “Coastr is an experiment in social networking for beer snobs (meant as a compliment, of course!). The basic idea is for you to create a list of your favorite beers, and to connect you with [...]
Digg Spy v2
December 21st, 2005I hadn’t seen what v1 looked like but v2 is more addicting and mind blowing than LiveMarks.
Digg Spy will let you take a peak at what it being digged, commented on, and more in real time. When I loaded the sucker up, I felt my brain start to go weak and my [...]
PA Senate Republican Multimedia Now Available Via RSS Feed
December 21st, 2005The Pennsylvania Senate Republican Caucus has released a multimedia RSS feed. They now have 3 feeds, including one for news and a podcast. From the Press Release
“‘We want to reach the people of Pennsylvania in a way that’s timely and convenient, and this technology certainly allows us to do that,’ said Sen. Brightbill’s [...]
The Web Will Read You a Story
December 21st, 2005Wired has a story on LibriVox, the social site that asks readers to submit audio files of them reading chapters in books (of course, out of copyright books).
When I was in high school, I was part of a youth organization. One of the year-long projects that we participated in [...]
Blog Right From Firefox
December 20th, 2005I’ll have to test this out after I upgrade to 1.5 (I’ve been lazy). Performancing is an extension that puts a pencil at the bottom half of the screen that, when clicked, will bring up a blog editor. It works with Wordpress, MovableType, and Blogger (Yay!).
Neville Hobson has a review and Robert Scoble [...]
Presentations and Getting Paid to Be a Librarian!
December 19th, 2005As you might know (and if you don’t, take a look at the right hand side of my blog), I present and organize sessions at many library conferences on the local, regional, and national level. I also expect to get paid for these presentations.
GASP! What did I just do? Spark an interest? [...]
Texas State Library and Archives Blog
December 19th, 2005CJ at Technobiblio has the scoop.
It’s called the The Open Record - “The interactive news forum of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission.” The commentary on the Technobiblio blog post mentions a few more state libraries that have previously jumped on board the state library bandwagon. Lovely!
Web 2.0 Forum
December 19th, 2005Here’s something I haven’t done in a while. I just suscribed to a Google Group. Web 2.0 Forum wants us to “Discuss All Things Web 2.0″. Not much action so far, but I’ll give it a whirl. Why the heck not, right? I’m young! (link via del.icio.us/tag/web2.0)
Diigo
December 19th, 2005
Diigo
Originally uploaded by stevenmcohen.
I’ve had the opportunity to try out a new social-bookmarking tool called Diigo. It’s in closed beta, but they sent me an invite after I begged (well, asked politely) for one. Also, since Diigo is not open to everyone, I asked permission to [...]
Brain Freeze
December 18th, 2005Ever have one of those nagging thoughts that you know if you wrote about it on your blog that you will be ostracized by your colleagues? I’ve been feeling this way for the past few months (ever since Internet Librarian) and I want to just blurt out what I think. But, I fear [...]