• 01Sep

    Be sure to check out William Gibson’s piece in the New York times today

    Google’s Earth

    Among the choice bits

    Google is not ours. Which feels confusing, because we are its unpaid content-providers, in one way or another. We generate product for Google, our every search a minuscule contribution. Google is made of us, a sort of coral reef of human minds and their products.

    and

    We never imagined that artificial intelligence would be like this. We imagined discrete entities. Genies. We also seldom imagined (in spite of ample evidence) that emergent technologies would leave legislation in the dust, yet they do. In a world characterized by technologically driven change, we necessarily legislate after the fact, perpetually scrambling to catch up, while the core architectures of the future, increasingly, are erected by entities like Google.

    Enjoy.

    ITIG Blog Contributor:
    Edward Iglesias
    Systems Librarian
    Central Connecticut State University

    Tags:

  • 31Aug

    Two new blog posts this morning on Social Networks and Privacy.  The fist came as a tweet from @zephoria pointing to security guru Bruce Schneier’s excellent blog Schnier on Security.  This post is called
    A Revised Taxonomy of Social Networking Data

    and is very helpful in coming to terms with exactly what happens to the stuff you post.  Here are the key pieces

    • Service data is the data you give to a social networking site in order to use it. Such data might include your legal name, your age, and your credit-card number.
    • Disclosed data is what you post on your own pages: blog entries, photographs, messages, comments, and so on.
    • Entrusted data is what you post on other people’s pages. It’s basically the same stuff as disclosed data, but the difference is that you don’t have control over the data once you post it — another user does.
    • Incidental data is what other people post about you: a paragraph about you that someone else writes, a picture of you that someone else takes and posts. Again, it’s basically the same stuff as disclosed data, but the difference is that you don’t have control over it, and you didn’t create it in the first place.
    • Behavioral data is data the site collects about your habits by recording what you do and who you do it with. It might include games you play, topics you write about, news articles you access (and what that says about your political leanings), and so on.
    • Derived data is data about you that is derived from all the other data. For example, if 80 percent of your friends self-identify as gay, you’re likely gay yourself.

    Now for many people this seems irrelevant having adopted Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s  Values of “openness”, “sharing” and “living your whole life on the Internet.” For those who have not ReadWriteWeb has a great post called
    The Rise of the Anti-Facebooks

    Heading the list is my personal favorite Diaspora

    … the distributed, open-source social network all about privacy and control of your data. Diaspora doesn’t cite Facebook by name on its Kickstarter page, where its four founders raised 20 times more money than they asked for. But its founders do refer to “large corporate networks who want to tell you that sharing and privacy are mutually exclusive.”

    While none of this is particularly new it is good to see that even the most ardent boosters of Social Media are starting to realize that though the message may be juvenile the medium must grow up.

    ITIG Blog Contributor:
    Edward Iglesias
    Systems Librarian
    Central Connecticut State University

    Tags: ,

  • 30Aug

    Boing Boing has coverage of Carl Malamud’s presentation of his keynote at the 19th World Wide Web Consortium conference in 2010.  The video is 46 minutes but highly valuable and entertaining.

    http://public.resource.org/rules/

    ITIG Blog Contributor:
    Edward Iglesias
    Systems Librarian
    Central Connecticut State University

  • 23Aug

    Sign up for this free webinar series sponsored by the Information Technology Interest Group of ACRL New England
    https://sites.google.com/site/nisowebinarseries/

    Location: College of the Holy Cross. Worcester, MA
    Webinar Series: Measuring Use, Assessing Success
    About: You can sign up for only one part of the series, or both!

    Part One: Measure, Assess, Improve, Repeat: Using Library Performance Metrics
    Date/Time: Sept 8th, 1pm-2:30pm
    Practitioners of ‘evidence-based librarianship’ will discuss and demonstrate evaluations of library collections and services using a variety of performance metrics. Metrics, when utilized creatively, offer many far-reaching applications and opportunities for demonstration of return-on-investment and proof of a library’s value to its parent institution, as well as new responsibilities to continue to show relevance.
    Speakers:
    Steve Hiller, Director, Assessment and Planning, University of Washington Libraries
    Martha Kyrillidou, Senior Director, Statistics and Service Quality Programs, Association of Research Libraries (ARL)
    Part Two: Count Me In: Measuring Individual Item Usage
    Date/Time: Sept 15th, 1pm-2:30pm
    Libraries’ growing awareness of performance measures has created an increased interest in and desire for fine-grained usage data. For years, gathering item-level usage data has meant counting uses of the physical containers of intellectual property, e.g.: books, tapes, discs, or periodicals, to name a few. Now that electronic versions of such items inhabit a much greater percentage of many libraries’ collections, including that held in their own institutional repositories, usage data about individual book chapters, journal articles, sound recordings, motion picture scenes, and so forth is within reach or is already trickling into libraries’ records.
    Speakers:
    Peter Shepherd, Project Director, Project COUNTER
    Johan Bollen, Associate Professor in the School of Informatics and Computing, Indiana University

    Update: There will be 12:30 for refreshments.  Location is Library Scalia Lab

    Tags: ,

  • 18Aug

    If you have been around since the early days of email you will doubtless have seen lots of email signatures that end with something like this

    —–BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE—–
    Version: GnuPG/MacGPG2 v2.0.14 (Darwin)

    iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJMa/

    tHAAoJEPn5dZT22vcrrJ4H/2gVGIOdgMc4uQ/p/PAsfYbZ
    CJ4Nff5QLpmwMGmaX8I8ZgGRDnFWcOI2SdIe6Cbp//icFiQxQ1otZByqqweL/FN5
    Vj7b+WRXroZ9zONAvOVWc3A2Veycgj4hKKG8javZAgZsmM8q2LvZ2goko6miSJwE
    2eMMWAtIVHaWRn8okOdkELl/bM82y5DgOUlcAlBDHEvbAYmgz72V9Mb8KJ12JYRr
    hPqlChrIgkUPNwjok4WmNye66TbhfxjOapxVnE7PzQzGD51KZ+EPtVH5V1xrj401
    m99h3vdlwrNgeV238XPOeARO2D3D1r4xsJug3iE15ARwViaMMlsartkrj80GDv8=
    =arv/
    —–END PGP SIGNATURE—–

    This is what is known as a PGP signature.  PGP stands for “Pretty Good Privacy” and has been around since 1991.  All the cool l337 kids had it back in the Usenet days and it is still seen in email signatures.  This is because if someone makes a statement via email there is no way of knowing that the person who wrote it is who he or she claims to be.  Encryption helps solve this problem through digital signatures like you see above.  You can read a lot more about this online but what I want to concentrate on today is a simple how to for adding one to your email.
    Disclaimer: This represents my experience using a Mac running OSX (Snow Leopard) with the provided mail.app.
    In order to begin you need
    mail.app (configured and running)

    The instructions on the GPGMail site are very good but you must follow them exactly.  Basically download MacGPG first.  Then follow these instructions in the terminal window.  Yes, they are for linux but they will work with one exception.  Mac uses a file called .bash_profile instead of .bashrc.  So where you get instructions like



    source ~/.bashrc

    replace with

    source ~/.bash_profile

    Once you have generated your key you can install the plugin GPGMail.  Then just restart mail and you should have access to the plugin in the preferences tab that looks something like this.

    You can then sign your emails.  It will require you to enter your passphrase to authenticate who you are.   You email is sent out with an attached digital signature and now you are one of the cool kids.

    ITIG Blog Contributor:
    Edward Iglesias
    Systems Librarian
    Central Connecticut State University

Tags: , ,

  • 10Aug

    RWW has a great article on eye tracking and web usability.  This is a subject of some interest to me since a few years ago I tried to build a set of eye tracking glasses using this article as a starting point.  There was also a project called TrackEye which let you use a webcam.  Considering the commercial glasses go for $45,000 these are still good alternatives for libraries.

    ITIG Blog Contributor:
    Edward Iglesias
    Systems Librarian
    Central Connecticut State University

    Tags:

  • 02Aug

    AT&T has released a new QR scanner app for the Android and Blackberry platforms partnered with a QR Code generator.  It makes it very easy to generate codes.  Here is one I created for my contact info

    Let me know if you can scan it in the comments.

    ITIG Blog Contributor:
    Edward Iglesias
    Systems Librarian
    Central Connecticut State University

    Update:  Looks like AT&T is using some proprietary mojo.  Here is one that is generated using http://qrcode.kaywa.com/

    qrcode

    This one from http://delivr.com/qr-code-generator provides the same format without the AT&T ick factor.

  • 30Jul

    ReadWriteWeb has an excellent post on Legacy Technology. Mostly a questionnaire for early adopters along the lines of “what old tech do you still use?” Here are some example answers

    Abraham Hyatt, Production Editor

    If you go into a hardware store, most hand tools have a sexy, modern version. (Just check out the framing hammers.) But it’s frippery added on to something that hasn’t changed in hundreds of years. I own my great x 4 grandfather’s homemade woodworking plane. It’s identical to wooden planes available today. Same goes for hand saws. I have my great x 2 grandfather’s hand saw – you could have bought it in a store today. It’s technology that has reached a kind of perfection. There’s no way to improve on it; it’s functionality in its purest form.

    That’s a powerful idea, the perfection of a technology.

    or the relevant to our field

    Richard MacManus, Founder and Editor-in-Chief

    I still use a paper notebook most of the time. I have a paper diary to complement Google Calendar and probably use the former more. I read paper books. I go to the library (it’s a big building with books in it).

    Always a smart-ass this guy. A building is a building with… Wait, what now?

    What “legacy tech” do you find yourselves using? I find that I still write things down on post it notes or whatever even when an electronic version is available (think meeting notes). The act of writing often solidifies an idea in my mind. I also can not draw on a computer to save my life. Please post comments below.

    ITIG Blog Contributor:
    Edward Iglesias
    Systems Librarian
    Central Connecticut State University

  • 28Jul

    Laura Kohl sent the following email.  Hope to see you at Central Connecticut State University

    ITIG Blog Contributor:
    Edward Iglesias
    Systems Librarian
    Central Connecticut State University

    Hello ITIG-ers!
    We would like to invite you to our ITIG planning meeting.
    
    It will be held at Central Connecticut State University, Burritt Library, 4th Floor Conference Room.
    
    Thursday August 19, 2010 from 9:30am – Noon.
    
    Please come to help us plan our year’s activities, share ideas and network.
    
    Invite folks who you think might be interested. All are welcome!
    
    Please RSVP to Laura Kohl if you plan to attend: lkohl@bryant.edu
    
    Laura Kohl & Talia Resendes, Co-Chairs
    
    Edward Iglesias & Bob Scheier, Co-Vice-Chairs
  • 23Jun

    What’s that, you have to have an iPhone?  Billshrink does its usual brilliant job of calculating the costs of ownership.  No matter which way you cut it that’s 2 grand not in your hand.

    ITIG Blog Contributor:
    Edward Iglesias
    Systems Librarian
    Central Connecticut State University

    Tags:

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