Great infographic from GigaOM about “The Rise of the Netbooks”. I have long thought that netbooks rather than smart phones are going to be here for the foreseeable future. Devices like the iPad are really netbooks wearing sexier clothing.
ITIG Blog Contributor:
Edward Iglesias
Systems Librarian
Central Connecticut State University
Tags: netbooks
I’m going to presenting on this topic for the unconference. If you have an opinion take the survey at the bottom. Please leave comments either here or on facebook or twitter hashtag #digicamp
How would our users react to being able to login with facebook
http://www.consuls.org:2082/screens/pverify_fb.html
Could it be done?
Would we be willing to do it?
Different Standards
If it could work, would you do it?
Take the Survey
ITIG Blog Contributor:
Edward Iglesias
Systems Librarian
Central Connecticut State University
Tags: Unconference
Read Write Web has an excellent article called Lady Gaga as the Killer App: Moving Identity into the Cloud. Relevant quotes include
Today, at the Open ID User Experience Summit, a jaw-dropping statistic was given that 89% of users coming to LadyGaga.com chose a third-party logon rather than create a new account. “Signup with Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace” is the default option on LadyGaga.com – and it works.
This brings to mind all the problems the professionals have had with authentication
Protocols, protocols, everywhere, and not a drop to drink. OAuth, OpenID, UX, Shibboleth, SAML, XRI, FOAF, Facebook Connect, that is a small sampling of some of the technologies that have been invented to move Internet Identity forward forward for the web.
In the library world we have been struggling with this problem for a long time. Single sign on, ez-prozy etc… Why don’t we outsource identity? We had this problem with YouTube. Do we host our own streaming service our put it out on YouTube? Eventually many libraries decided to use this service or similar ones like blip.tv to host their broadcasts. Even services like iTunes U or putting it up on LibGuides is a concession that we can use outside services to provide solutions better than we can in house.
What would be wrong with having students log in to our web sites with Facebook? I’d like to hear your comments below.
Update: Check out the Loose Cannon Librarian’s post on Library Monsters and Lady Gaga
ITIG Blog Contributor:
Edward Iglesias
Systems Librarian
Central Connecticut State University
Tags: authentication, facebook, LadyGaGa, privacy
Information is Beautiful has a great interactive graphic of which nutritional supplements have been shown to be effective and which have not. This is the way we should be displaying data to allow for greater discovery.
Link http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/play/snake-oil-supplements/
ITIG Blog Contributor:
Edward Iglesias
Systems Librarian
Central Connecticut State University
This is one of my pet peeves and maybe it is because I don’t multitask well. People who claim to be good at multitasking are usually horrible at completion. Gina Trapani has an excellent short video on the subject on Fast Company’s website.
I find Gina’s work terrific and her advice spot on.
ITIG Blog Contributor:
Edward Iglesias
Systems Librarian
Central Connecticut State University
Tags: multitasking
This isn’t really library related but the new CARD act went into effect today. Chances are if you are a reference librarian you will get questions on it. Here is an excellent rundown from Consumerist.
• No more retroactive rate hikes. Credit card companies can no longer apply the higher interest rate to previously held balances.
• No more universal default; one credit card can’t raise your rate simply because you’ve missed a payment on a different card.
• Your credit card statements must be mailed to you 21 days before payment due date and payment due dates can’t suddenly change. Be warned that there may be an increase in banks mailing out statements in unfamiliar or unmarked envelopes so as to confuse account holders.
• Your statements are now required to explain how long it will take you to pay off your balance — and the total amount of interest you will have paid — if you only pay the monthly minimum. HOWEVER, if you do not begin paying immediately, or if you miss a payment during the 6-month period, that penalty rate may end up being permanent.
• They must now give you 45 days notice before changing any terms and conditions in your agreement.
• They can only charge you an increased penalty rate if your account goes past due for 60 days. And if you begin making on-time payments immediately, after 6 months they are required to restore your previous interest rate.
• To recoup some of the expected losses due to the new the new regulations, credit card companies are expected to begin charging fees for services like paper billing and overseas purchases. Additionally, expect a hike in fees for cash advances.
See also Frontline’s excellent coverage.
ITIG Blog Contributor:
Edward Iglesias
Systems Librarian
Central Connecticut State University
A great demo of on the fly translation in Google Goggles
More information at
http://www.google.com/mobile/goggles/#landmark
ITIG Blog Contributor:
Edward Iglesias
Systems Librarian
Central Connecticut State University
Tags: google
WebWorkerDailyhas a great post on 4 Steps to Getting Your Toolbox Under Control. The concept of a “toolbox” of apps you use daily is useful if only to figure out what skills need to be thought out in terms of ROI. I would list the tools I use on a daily basis for work as
Additionally there are tools like facebook and twitter that I don’t use every day but still consider part of my toolbox. Finally there are tools I am starting to reconsider.
Dreamweaver
When I started as a librarian in 2000 this was the tool to use when designing web pages and it still is to a large extent. Nowadays I find myself tweaking code a lot more and trying to get pages to display correctly or work with javascript or php. While I still value Dreamweaver my focus is now much more on emerging html standards. There just isn’t a button for it in Dreamweaver sometimes. Additionally tools like Wordpress make html skills unnecessary for most users.
Perl
I still use Perl scripts regularly but it is increasingly for things that “the vendor should do”. While I love the straightforward nature of Perl there are so many other languages that do similar things.
Let me know what tools you still use or have long abandoned in the comments.
ITIG Blog Contributor:
Edward Iglesias
Systems Librarian
Central Connecticut State University
Carl Mamud has formed something called the International Amateur Scanning League to scan and rip DVDs from the National Archives and put them on YouTube
The NARA facility in College Park, Maryland has a wealth of information available to researchers, including over 1,500 DVDs that are works of the government and can be freely copied using a DVD duplicator. NARA is kindly allowing us to install a second DVD duplicator for use of Scanning League members, who will systematically copy those 1,500 DVDs, place them in a FedFlix return envelope, and send them back to Public.Resource.Org. These DVDs will then be uploaded to the Internet Archive, YouTube, and our own Public Domain Stock Footage Library. These 1,500 new videos will join over 1,300 videos currently on-line that have had several million views and were the result of a joint venture with the National Technical Information Service as well as from numerous other government agencies who sent us tapes and DVDs.
Check out the full story at http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/02/international-amateur-scanning.html and http://public.resource.org/
ITIG Blog Contributor:
Edward Iglesias
Systems Librarian
Central Connecticut State University
Tags: archives
ReadWriteWeb is quoting a study from CISCO that predicts mobile traffic will reach 40 exabytes a year.
In only four short years, the worldwide mobile data traffic will reach 40 exabytes per year. This is according to new research from Cisco which sees the traffic jumping from 0.09 exabytes per month in 2009 to 3.6 exabytes per month by 2014. And in case you don’t know what an exabyte is, it’s 1 billion gigabytes. That’s one quintillion bytes.
If that seems outrageous consider the obvious benefits to users as well as the less obvious ones. Mobile devices are cheap (relatively) and sneaky. This makes them good companions for a generation that values constant connectivity. It also reminds me of having to take a GRE and not being allowed a calculator that was programmable. The problem with mobile devices is scalability and this is being shown everywhere. Unless the carriers get serious about bandwidth more and more phones are going to default to wi-fi. Indeed, one reviewer of the new I-pad wondered why anyone would pay for 3-g service when wi-fi is so ubiquitous. Google seems to have the right idea.
ITIG Blog Contributor:
Edward Iglesias
Systems Librarian
Central Connecticut State University
