Mentat

February 21, 2008

Cloudbook for Laptop Loaner

The new Cloudbook is an ultralight PC (2 lbs) with all open source software installed including Open Office which provides a very nice substitute to the oh so pricey Microsoft Office suite.

At a cost of only $399, this might be a very nice option for libraries thinking about making laptops available to their users.

Not only is the OS (gOS Rocket) and the applications Open Source (Mozilla Firefox, gMail, Meebo, Skype, Wikipedia, GIMP, Blogger, YouTube, Xing Movie Player, RythemBox, Faqly, Facebook and OpenOffice.org 2.3 (includes WRITER, IMPRESS, DRAW, CALC, BASE)), but the units are also based on an "ultra-low power design" and are "whisper quiet."

I don't know about you but all that matters. In fact, the quiet part is one of the most important features in my selfish book because the buzz, hum and gurgle of most computers drives me mad!

Though the Cloudbook sounds interesting, you may want to sit tight while people like Meredith Farkas work out the kinks for you. It sounds like it isn't ready right out of the box for your library users but between the price, size, greenness and open sourceness.....it just might be the right fit down the road.

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August 21, 2007

Sorters and Self-Check -in Just Make Sense

I've been a very very bad girl. No postings for over a month. Turns out when I'm trying to get a report of some kind written, I can't post a blog entry. It feels like an adulterous act - like I'm cheating on my client. Writing....but not for them.

As always, in writing the report, I learned something. I learned that I could make a very conservative ROI estimate of 9-12 years for not just a a central sortation system for a medium sized library system but also for two or three individual library sorters. That's a lot of automation with a pretty good payback. And it doesn't take super high volume to make an economic argument in support of it.

In my ROI estimate, I ONLY counted the savings in time for the people in the library dealing with sorting items from the book drop bins and their internal delivery system and getting items to a "ready-to-shelve" state. There's lots more reasons to use a sorter. Lots more ways it is beneficial to the library (fewer RSI injuries, faster turnaround for customers, less boring tasks) but I didn't take any of that into account on my ROI calculations.

Oh, and in those calculations, I had automated check-in stations for the public. Not check-out. Check-in. Those were factored into my prices and figured into my ROI but the benefit for all concerned for automated check-in wasn't included either.

Sorters and automated check-ins are coming. Both take some of the mundane clerical work that is mind-numbing (or opportunities for Zen meditation depending on your point of view) away from library workers and gives them opportunities to do other tasks that require creative human beings. They are great for customers too. Items get in and out faster. People like to be able to check in their items right away to clear their accounts. And it clears the way for the library to focus more on providing innovative customer service and programs.

To treat myself for having completed that report, I flew up to King County Library System and took at look at Matilda, their beloved central sort system. Wow. The system is incredible. They sort 7000-9000 items per shift. Here's how it works. There's a tote drop off and pick up area right at the loading dock that the delivery personnel interface with. They bring in stacks of totes on a hand truck and drop them on a platform for Matilda. She unstacks the totes and queues up the bins at four locations where human operators take out individual items and place them on a large oval conveyor system that is moving VERY fast. As in fast enough that I couldn't do that job because I would feel sick to my stomach all the time. I couldn't work in a microfilm library for the same reason. Zipping ahead on a microfilm roll just makes me want to hurl. Anyhoooo, back to Matilda. So the people put the items on the conveyor and the items are taken around to the other side of the oval where they are whipped into the right sort location. That part is absolutely miraculous. But don't worry about damage, the items are whisked off the conveyor to a bin but it is a lateral whisk to a chute that then opens and drops them into the tote. Straight down, no manglation (new word).

When the sort totes are full,a human operator simply pushes them forward to another conveyor that takes the totes back to a giant stack of totes that Matilde uses for staging. She keeps track of all the totes in the stack.

When a driver comes in to begin his route, he tells Matilde what route he's going to do and she gathers up all the totes the driver needs and brings them out, all nicely stacked in threes so the driver can pick up the stack with a hand truck without ever having to bend over to hoist a bin anywhere.

Any group of people who've bothered to name an automation system have done so because they have developed some kind of connection to the machine. Maybe you've named your car and you know what I mean. Well, the sorter is named Matilde and the folks that work with Matilde seem to have a very healthy and honest relationship with her. They have had to work hard to enjoy the efficiency of the system and they know about some of her idiosyncrasies. But they've figured out how to make it work for everyone. It takes a staff of 7 or so to do those 7000-9000 sorts each shift but they all seem to enjoy their time together. It's really a site (sight?) to behold. If you ever get a chance to see it in operation and meet the folks there, I strongly recommend it.

And that's the story of why I haven't blogged for a month. Well, that's part of the story anyway.

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May 18, 2007

Wu wei and Computer Troubleshooting

Wu wei refers to the Taoist concept of inaction or nondoing. Alan Watts, author of Tao: the Watercourse Way says nondoing is what we mean by going with the grain, rolling with the punch, swimming with the current, trimming sails to the wind, taking the tide at its flood, and stooping to conquer. Thus, nondoing is the life-style of one who follows the Tao, and must be understood primarily as a form of intelligence.

Which brings me to this very intelligent post from Lucien Kress who suggests that often a period of inaction when faced with a computer problem is the best course of action. He suggests getting up and stretching or going to get a drink of water. By stepping away from your computer and giving it and you a moment to breathe, you will find that it is doing just fine. If it isn't, you'll have a much better idea of what action is called for. He says:

What I find attractive about wu wei is the idea that some problems don't require action. In fact my experience is that rushing in to solve a problem often makes it worse. This connects somehow to the Stoic idea of knowing what you can control, and accepting what you can't. Meddling with things you have no control over makes you a frustrated, anxious, and fault-finding person".

Sometimes problems work themselves out. And sometimes a period of inaction leads to more insight and clarity than you had at first.

What else can I say. In the spirit of wu wei, I'll leave it at that.

Posted by at 7:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

May 15, 2007

Developing a Library Technology Plan, Part 1

I've been developing a lot of material for online courses lately and haven't had a chance to post to this blog. So, I thought I might capitalize on my efforts and rework some of the material for this venue. This is installment one from my four week course on Developing a Library Technology Plan. The course is going to be offered again starting in July 10, 2007. If you are interested in attending, go to this Infopeople page.

What is a Library Technology Plan
A library technology plan is a document that describes the library's use of technology, the strategy used by the library to make decisions about what technology to use and support, related activities planned for the next three years, and a budget. The technology plan also helps ensure that all aspects of the library technology infrastructure are properly supported.

Technology is defined as the hardware and software associated with the library's use of information technology such as servers, computers, printers, the wide area network (WAN), any local area networks (LANs), operating systems and application software. It also includes any telecommunications hardware such as phones, phone lines, T1 lines and associated circuits.

Technology plans generally include plans for technology activities in the coming three years. Technology activities are defined as the ongoing work of maintaining the existing infrastructure as well as projects that arise to implement new technology or introduce a new service. A three year view allows the technology plan to keep track of long term plans and plan for trends that are developing. The technology planners may not be able to respond to a new trend in the current year but by placing it in the plan for two or three years down the line, they are able to keep track of it and plan accordingly.

The technology plan brings all the maintenance and project activities together and helps managers and administrators make well-informed decisions. It incorporates all the projects and ongoing support for the library infrastructure that will require library resources and ensures that the library has set aside the necessary amount of money to accomplish them, has the expertise lined up to accomplish them and that the priorities are in line with the service goals of the library.

The technology plan should be reviewed annually to make sure it accounts for expected and unexpected changes. Each year certain technologies will need to be retired and new technologies will need to be introduced and sometimes changes come more quickly than expected. An annual review will ensure that the plan is modified as needed to account for internal library changes, new technology initiatives, and any other unexpected changes about the way technology is used in the library.

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Developing a Library Technology Plan, Part 2

Installment 2 from my four week course on Developing a Library Technology Plan. The course is going to be offered again starting in July 10, 2007. If you are interested in attending, go to this Infopeople page.

Supporting the Strategic Plan
The primary planning document for any library is the strategic plan. Therefore, to be a good management tool, the technology plan complements and builds upon the strategic plan (or some other planning document that specifies the library's service goals).

This kind of technology planning requires the cooperation of the Information Technology (IT) department because of their technology expertise, as well as administrators (who are responsible for establishing service goals) and public service staff (who are responsible for actually delivering the services).

The best technology plans are explicitly tied to the library's service goals to ensure that no technology is being supported that doesn’t have a direct connection to the library's strategic plan.

When we talk about service goals, we are talking about our library users. Service is provided to the user. It is the library user's experience that is used to measure the library's success. Even infrastructure improvements go back to the user experience. Stable networks, fast Internet connections, excellent computer support: these all improve the user experience in the library by keeping operations running smoothly and ensuring that resources are readily available. As much as possible, the user experience should always be expressed when stating service goals.

In addition to tying the technology activities to specific service goals, the technology plan should provide some indication of when these activities are expected to commence. The goals and activities support the goals should be stated in such a way as to make it easy to determine if the activities were accomplished as planned or not.

Sample excerpt from technology plan's Supporting the Strategic Plan section:

Strategic Plan Goal: Increase availability of library resources to online customers.

Add international newspapers to virtual library by November 2007
Add e-book selections to virtual library by Februrary 2008
Add anonymous chat option for providing online reference services by December 2007

Posted by at 7:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Developing a Library Technology Plan, Part 3

Installment 3 from my four week course on Developing a Library Technology Plan. The course is going to be offered again starting in July 10, 2007. If you are interested in attending, go to this Infopeople page.

Suggested Outline for the Technology Plan

It is possible to create a technology plan that serves three important purposes: promotes good technology management practices, can be used for E-Rate applications, and can be used for fundraising by showing how technology activities and costs are a necessary byproduct of fulfillling the library's service goals.

The template for such a technology plan includes the following sections:

Introduction
Library Mission
Technology Strategy
[Accomplishments from Previous Plan]
Technology Overview and Assessment
Professional Development Strategy
Supporting the Strategic Plan
Budget
Review and Updates
Conclusion

The Introduction provides the context for the library technology plan and includes information about the process used to develop it. It provides any necessary background information about the current year.

The Library Mission is simply a restatement of the library's mission statement.

The Technology Strategy is a short statement about the relationship between the library's mission and the technology plan. It should explain how the library intends to utilize technology to further its mission.

Accomplishments from the Previous Plan is a section that only becomes relevant in year two after the library has created a technology plan, implemented it, and comes back to review it the following year. Each time the technology plan is revised, a summary of what was accomplished in the previous period should be reported in the subsequent plan. This isn't the place to explain why objectives were not met: those should be included in the Introduction. This section is a summary of what did get done as planned.

Technology Overview and Assessment is a summary of the telecommunications equipment, servers, computers, printers, self-check machines, sorting systems, and all other technology currently in use at the library (and all branches). It describes important policies that affect technology and includes plans for significant upgrades, replacements, and migrations expected over the next three years.

Professional Development Strategy is where the plans for maintaining a workforce capable of supporting the library's technology plan are explained. This will include details about core competencies established for all library workers as well as training activities planned for staff to achieve the target competencies and to ensure that library technology can be properly supported by staff.

Supporting the Strategic Plan is where the library's service goals are explicitly tied to technology expenditures and activities. New projects, upgrades, migrations, training initiatives, infrastructure improvements, and standard maintenance activities are all tied to library service goals in this section.

The Budget section is a high level view of technology estimated expenditures. It is not an item by item accounting. Generally, planned expenses are separated out into less than 10 categories.

The Review and Updates section includes a description of how often the technology plan will be reviewed and who will be involved in the process.

The Conclusion is an opportunity to mention the library's recent achievements and emphasize the goals for the coming year.

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September 1, 2006

Fun with Menopause and Tomato Juice

Eric Lease Morgan has created something very cool called Tomato Juice. Here's how he describes it:

Given one or more words the system will try to look up definitions,
synonyms, encyclopedia articles, books (with cover art when
available), pictures, and Web links related to the input. It does
this by taking advantage of various (Amazon.com, Yahoo, dictionary,
etc.) Web Services.

I tried it out using the word 'menopause.' I urge you to do the same and be sure to click on the link "Pictures and Images" after running your search. Priceless.

Eric suggests this mash-up of his is something that libraries not only might want to do for their users (Agreed!) but it is something they might want to allow others to do with their data. In other words, make your library content one of the things that gets included in someone else's Tomato Juice -esque mashup. (Agreed!)

The direction we're going is to get our data out to our users. We can't wait for them to come to us. I guess that's my theme for the day.

Posted by at 2:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Every Library Needs the LibX Firefox extension

I don't understand why there hasn't been a lot more enthusiasm for LibX, the Firefox extension because it TOTALLY rocks!

For starters, every public access computer should be set up with it and the library should be promoting it to their customers. It's an EASY WAY to bring your library to your customers via their favorite software -- their browser.

Here's what it does:

Provides users direct access to their library catalog via a toolbar or a right-click menu (context menu). Users can perform searches on keyword, title, author, CrossRef DOIs, ISBNs, and ISSNs, and PubMed IDs. The right-click being a context menu means the options available depend on what the user is right-clicking on.
Users can select all or part of a reference and run a search against Google Scholar's database. The results are compared to the library's subscriptions (via OpenURL) and if a matching hit is found, the user is taken straight to the article. The actual Google Scholar results page is also displayed to the user.
With Google Scholar, depending on how your link resolver is setup, you may be able to take the user straight to the article at their library without the user seeing Google's involvement at all.
Displays "cues" (little icons) when a library service is available related to what is on the web page. For example, if the user is viewing book titles, a cue would appear allowing the user to click on it to see if the book is available at their library. See the screenshots page for how that looks.
Support for COinS which turns hidden tags inserted by web site authors or publishers into actionable OpenURLs links that allow a user to download the full text of an item.

You can host your edition of the Firefox extension or have it hosted on the LibX server where it will be automatically updated.

What a great way to bring the library to the user. Why aren't more libraries using this? Am I missing something? So far, most of the users of LibX are academic libraries but a few brave public libraries are trying it out. Kudos to them!

Sure wish my library used LibX. For all of us in California with San Francisco Public Library cards, this would be an incredible resource because it would make access to their excellent subscription databases that much easier.

This is great stuff!

Posted by at 9:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

August 16, 2006

Is the Web Worth It?

I love this quote from Tim Berners-Lee in an interview with Mark Lawson at BBC News when he was asked if the Web was really worth the trouble (e.g. identity theft, pornography):

"I feel that we need to individually work on putting good things on it, finding ways to protect ourselves from accidentally finding the bad stuff, and that at the end of the day, a lot of the problems of bad information out there, things that you don't like, are problems with humanity.

This is humanity which is communicating over the web, just as it's communicating over so many other different media. I think it's a more complicated question we have to; first of all, make it a universal medium, and secondly we have to work to make sure that that it supports the sort of society that we want to build on top of it."

I couldn't agree more.

Posted by at 8:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 6, 2006

Optimize Web Pages for 1024x768! Wahoo!

Good news from Jakob Nielsen (via Web4Lib). In Alertbox July 31, 2006, Nielsen (Web Usability Expert and author of Useit.com) suggests Web designers should "Optimize Web pages for 1024x768, but use a liquid layout that stretches well for any resolution, from 800x600 to 1280x1024."

Nielsen states that 60% of all monitors are set at 1024x768 and only 17% are now set at 800x600. I'm thinking that after this last round of Gates Foundation Public Access Computer Hardware Upgrade Grants even library monitors might be set at 1024x768. I hope so.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm relieved because it means I can stop having those arguments with my Web designers about how important it is to design for 800x600 which is, I agree, dang ugly on a finer resolution monitor. Hoooo haaa!

Posted by at 4:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 26, 2006

Using Service Level Agreements Takes the Guesswork out of IT Support

I was working on developing a Service Level Agreement (SLA) for a client recently and ended up finding some useful information on the topic in general. There is a lot of good information available about SLAs as it fits into the ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) model. ITIL is a British creation and much more popular on the other side of the ocean. Microsoft has a similar model called the Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF). I found the ITIL model more flexible so I'm focusing on that model. However in both ITIL and MOF, the Service Level Agreement is an important component of IT service management and I believe librareis would benefit from developing SLAs between their IT (information technology) service provider and the various departments that rely on that service. Thus this entry....

Based on ITIL, a Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a documented agreement between the service provider (IT Dept.) and the service recipient (e.g. various departments of the library). The SLA is an internal document. It is not a legal contract but a commitment that accurately and fairly reflects what the library wants (and needs) and what the IT Dept. can reasonably provide.

The SLA sets expectations. It should be short and concise like this Public Access Service Level Agreement used by the University of Sydney.

Two other related terms are the Operation Level Agreement (OLA) and the Underpinning Contracts (UCs). OLA are like SLAs but they are internal to the service department. In other words, once the IT Dept. in the library has established an agreement with all other library departments about what the library needs and can expect from the IT Dept. (as documented in the SLAs), then the IT Dept. needs to figure out what it needs to do in order to meet their commitments. The OLA establishes ITs commitments to itself. UCs are contracts between the library (for example) and an outside service provider. An UC establishes the targets that the contractor must meet in order to satisfy the needs of the client.

In the world of ITIL, SLAs, OLAs and UCs work together to form the service catalog (that would be catalogue to the ITIL blokes) which represents all the service components involved in addressing the customers needs. But let's get back to the SLAs....

Each SLA has specific components that are usually included depending on whether it is a Public Access Service Level Agreement or a Staff Desktop Service Level Agreement, a Web Service Level Agreement, or a Help Desk Service Level Agreement.

Most Service Level Agreements will include sections describing the following:

Description of the Service
Date of Agreement
Service Hours
Where Service is Delivered
Service Coordinator
Responsibilities of Service Coordinator
User Responsibilities
Support Procedures
Escalation
Procedure for Changes to Service
Monitoring and Reporting

Other sections that you might consider including in your Service Level Agreement are Support Responsibilties,
External Dependencies, Server Maintenance Plans (aka Continuity), Standards Followed, Developments Underway or Planned, User Training Required to Use Service, Underpinning Contracts, Frequency of Reviews of SLA, and Cost/Charging.

The point is to flesh out and state clearly what is expected of the service and define how it is to work. The key is to define the service in a way that can be accomplished by your service group. It should be a practical, reality-based document that takes the guess work out of IT support for both the service provider and the service receiver.

Posted by at 4:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 30, 2006

Data Mining: What is it and how it is related to Information Retrieval and Text Mining

If you are interested in learning a bit more about data mining, you might enjoy this paper. In addition to providing a basic overview of data mining, it also addresses the relationship of data mining to text mining and information retrieval.

Download PDF file

Posted by at 7:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 24, 2006

Hmmm, I Can't Get that on MY Internet!

I hope everyone is paying attention to what Congress is doing with the Telecommunications Act. The big telecom companies are saying some things that have organizations like Common Cause, Center for Digital Democracy, and ALA (oh, never mind, my mistake) expressing concern about.

Network neutrality refers to the concept that your Internet Service Provider shouldn't have anything to say about what you can access over the Internet or what applications you use once you're there.

The current language in the new telecommunications act states that certain classes of Internet providers "may not unreasonably" impair, interfere, restrict or limit applications or services." Of course there's no definition of what "unreasonable" means and I'm not sure what "certain classes of Internet providers means either. Common Cause has launched a Keep the Internet Free and Open campaign to make sure the new telecommunications act is stronger on network neutrality.

Tiered access is related to this network neutrality thing. The concept here is that ISPs could make deals with certain content providers so that their webpages are optimized. So, for example, going to Yahoo.com would be lickity split but, say, lii.org, might load reeeaaaaalllll slow since they weren't paying out the big bucks for the top tier service. James Surwiecki describes the issues very well in his New Yorker piece entitled Net Losses.

Lawrence Lessig explains that the reason we've managed to have network neutrality so far is simply because we originally got on the Net via our phone lines which were regulated by common carriage, the telephone version of network neutrality. But now that we are getting on the Internet via cable and broadband companies who are not telephone companies, the jig could be up.

Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) is trying his best to see that this doesn't happen. He's sponsored S 2360, the Internet non-Discrimination Act of 2006. It would prevent tiered access and enforce network neutrality. But there are no co-sponsors of this bill.

To be fair to ALA, they do support S 2360. I found out by digging deep into the bowels of the ALA site. I'd like to see more action from information professionals on this topic. What tier do you think you're library website would be on?

Posted by at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 29, 2005

Ultra Discounted Usability Methods

In the inaugural issue of the Journal of Usability Studies is a short article by Jakob Nielsen entitled Usability for the Masses in which Nielsen suggests that usability needs to packaged "so that it can be fruitfully applied by swarming masses of part-timers."

His logic goes like this:

There are 100x more websites than there are usability professionals.
Most websites are designed according to the designer's taste with little or no usability testing.
Websites are 2x as successful (often measured in sales) if usability testing is done.

Conclusion:

Extend the work on discount usability engineering to create ultra-discounted methods

In other words, rather than trying to ramp up the number of usability professionals to one million (from the current 10,000), bring usability testing to the masses by developing specific usability guidelines that are easy for practioners to apply. Until usability is easy, quick, and cheap, most companies will continue to avoid it.

Nielsen is absolutely right. People are not doing usability testing and it is because its too dang hard and ridiculously expensive. I recently tried to hire a usability professional for a website project and was told that she wouldn't be available to do the job for three months (proving there not enough usability professionals) and that it would then take at least a month to do the work and would cost my client at least $20,000. The entire project for the website was budgeted for $20,000. So guess what? No usability testing.

Nielsen puts out this call to usability professionals and researchers of the world:

Usability needs to be simplfied even more and made even more actionable. There is a full research agenda here, and we better get started finding the answers, because it is already too late.

Amen.

Posted by at 2:31 PM | Permalink

August 13, 2005

Web Developer Extension for Firefox and Mozilla

Chris Pederick has created a truly useful tool for not just developers of websites but anyone trying to troubleshoot pages or work with developers. Web Developer is a Mozilla/Firefox extension that adds a toolbar to your browser (Firefox or Mozilla only) that allows you to perform myriad functions including:

View and edit the style sheet
Disable the browser cache, cookies, image animations, images, Java, JavaScript, page colors, popup blocker, referrer logging, styles;
Validate HTML, links and CSS using the W3C validation service; RSS feed using Feed Validator; and, Section 508 and WAI compliance using the Cynthia service;
Display a speed report for the page using the Web Site Optimization service
Clear the browser cache, browser history, browser HTTP authentication, or session cookies;
Display elements or anchors on the page; div, form and table elements; full path of all links; tab index of all form elements; all cookies; any JavaScript in the page; response headers.

And it is all infinitely customizable.

I installed the product when I needed to do some work with colors on a website I'm developing. And though I'm not doing much of the coding, it was useful for me to be the one to play around with colors in the style sheet instead of paying my programmer to do that.

A link checker we wrote was making some mistakes so using the "Display response header" feature made it easy to sort through the link checker's mistakes versus real problems with web pages we were linking to.

Ever wonder which cookies were being placed on your computer by a website...click on "Display cookies" to find out.

This is a great, [free] product for anyone using a Mozilla browser. Kudos to its creator!

Posted by at 9:05 AM | Permalink

June 9, 2005

Improve Display of Fonts on XP

Mr. Gates did something kind of strange (and undesireable) with fonts when he delivered us Windows XP. As a result, some web designers report that "XP is the bane of my existence!"

Turns out the fonts of many web pages look much worse for those of us on XP versus say....well...Macs for one. But now more!

Follow these steps to amazingly clearer fonts everywhere including websites and even on Word documents:

1. Go to Control Panel
2. Select Display
3. Choose the Appearance tab
4. Click on Effects
5. Where it says "Choose following method to smooth edges of screen fonts", change Standard to Clear Type.

Immediate and very satisfying results...no?

Posted by at 4:06 PM | Permalink

May 20, 2005

Research-based Web Design and Usability Guidelines

I just discovered an excellent resource for everyone involved in website design, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Research-based Web Design and Usability Guidelines (2003).

Each chapter (available as a separate PDF) focuses on a component such as Design Process and Evaluation, Accessibility, The Homepage, Page Layout, Navigation, Content Organization, etc. There are 17 chapters.

In addition to the guideline itself, each entry includes a comment section, source and usually an excellent example for how to apply the guideline.

Sample entry (no example with this one):

The website provides many ways to access the information including the downloadable chapters, one PDF file of the whole book and a sortable view of each guideline by relative importance, chapter, strength of evidence (research) and relative score.

Highlights:

Provide Useful Content (1:4)

Use Black Text on Plain, High-Contrast Backgrounds(11:1)

Provide Consistent Clickability Cues (10:1)

Use Clear Category Labels (9:1)

Ensure Usable Search Results (17:2)

Eliminate Horizontal Scrolling (8:1)

Organize Information Clearly (16:1)

Ensure Visual Consistency (11:2)

Use Clear Category Labels (9:1)

Display Information in a Directly Usable Format (2:1)

Put Critical Information Near the Top of the Website (16:2)

Use Unique and Descriptive Headings (9:2)

Format Common Items Consistently (11:3)

Provide Feedback on Users' Location (7:1)

Posted by at 9:55 AM | Permalink

April 4, 2005

Web Accessibility Toolbar from NILS

Steven Faulkner of Accessible Information Solutions, a division of the National Information Library Services (NILS) in Australia has made the IE Web Accessibility Toolbar available for non-commercial use.

Even though it only works with IE, it is a significant contribution to anyone interested in keeping their website accessible for a wide range of visitors and compliant with current standards.

After you've installed it, just browse to the site you want to validate and you're just a click away from checking your site for against:

W3C HTML
W3C CSS
HTML Tidy
Link Checker

But wait there's more! You can also easily test your site using these third party tools:

Bobby
The Wave
Cynthia
Webxact

See how you site looks to people with color blindness, macular degeneration, and glaucoma. See how your site fares for people without plugins, without a mouse or using a Lynx viewer.

There are also several tools available from Juicy Studio that allow you to analyze your site for readability and to evaluate the tables, images, links and CSS.

What an incredible tool! If you like it and decide to use, be a good sport and donate to the developer. Thanks, Steven!

Posted by at 4:22 PM | Permalink

January 8, 2005

Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think

I'm a big fan of Steve Krug's book, Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability. I'm feeling pretty guilty that I just purchased five copies of his book for my co-workers without visting his site first which would have resulted in him getting a hefty kickback from Amazon (via their Associate's program). Oh well.
So what's so great about this book? Well, it helps you get into the user's seat when you are looking at websites. When we work on our own websites, we very quickly get used to how we've laid them out and where things are and completely lose our ability to look at our website from the user's perspective. And if we're designing our websites for the people who visit them, learning this skill is very important.
Krug uses an image that has really worked well for me. He examines websites (in the book) and imagines the thought bubbles forming over the heads of the users. For example, one of his sample sites has a "search" box and a "quick search" box...so the obvious thought bubble that appears over all of our heads is "Hmmm, I guess these are different. I wonder how."
Do you suppose there are any thought bubbles over the head of first time visitors to a library website with a link to "Electronic Resources?" Or what about "Reader's Advisory?" These terms might make sense to us but I'll bet most civilians don't know what they mean.
Krug states that the way we really use the Web is that we scan pages, muddle through and choose the first reasonable option. We "satisfice."
Digression: This concept of satisficing which is a cross between satisfying and sufficing was coined by Herbert Simon who sounds like quite an interesting guy....
I find Krug's description of how we use the Web to be accurate in my experience. I certainly scan the pages and try my best to read as little as possible. I just want to get to the clicking part. What is there that I can click on that will give me the answer?
I don't take the time to try to understand the underlying strategy of how a website is organized. I most certainly muddle through and then judge harshly any site that doesn't accommodate my muddlesome approach. And as for satisficing...yea, fer sure.
The fact that users don't read the text on the page is one of those things that we have to accept and agree to design to. We know they aren't going to read most of what's there so figure out what you really want them to SEE and bring their focus to that. Maybe some reading will happen on the second or third link but we may as well just stop griping and complaining that "it's right there on our website" and design our top level pages for scanning...not reading....hey, are you still reading this?

Posted by at 7:49 PM | Permalink

November 23, 2004

Meet TechSoup!

TechSoup has been a great resource for nonprofits for years. It makes software available to nonprofits at very low prices and provides links to useful resources like places that will take your old computers for recycling and links to free downloadable software.

They also write succinct and targeted articles like this one on how to prevent spam.

And here comes the really great news...

The TechSoup constituency has been expanded to include libraries!.

This means that libraries can get in on the pricing and hopefully even more of TechSoup's excellent resource listings will take libraries into account too.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted by at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 6, 2004

EditPad Pro, AceText and PowerGREP

Was just following up on some suggestions from WEB4LIB for good text editors and came across a wonderful suggestion from Genny Engel of Sonoma County Library. She suggested EditPad Pro for people writing Perl scripts and most any other kind of text file (PHP, Javascript, and XML for example). I've checked it out and have to concur heartily with Genny.

EditPad Pro rocks! Normally $39.95, you can use this link to take advantage of their friend's discount and get it for $29.95 (for the next three days).

Jan Goyvaerts is the founder and owner of JustGreatSoftware. All of the products he sells are available on a 30-day trial basis. The trial version is fully functional. And once you pay for it, there is a 90-day money back guarantee.

I also really like AceText which is a great tool for anyone who uses word processing or email. Using AceText, you can save text clips (not just a few tabs worth like with Notespad) and then define the paste order for multiple clips. You can search all or some of your text clips (and you can have up to 10,000). Clips can be reused easily in e-mails and documents using shortcuts. In email, you can remove all the quotes off each line of a message and then 'reflow' the lines so that it becomes a nice normal paragraph. There's also a 'trim white space' command. Unix shell commands come to Windows!

Using AceText ensures you don't pollute Word documents with funky formatting from other Word documents and allows you to organize text snippets and move lots of chunks of text around easily. Price: $39.95

And there's more! Check out PowerGREP. This utility is a mere $99 and it not allows gives you a GREP tool to use in Windows but it has loads of regular expressions predefined so you can use them to search for emails or updating copyright statements on your website or collecting referring URLs from you web log file.

I used to be a Unix administrator but am now trapped in the world of Windows and all my Unix muscles have atrophied. Between PowerGrp and my new Mac (with OS X), I'm hoping to build up my Unix muscles again!

Good stuff at JustGreatSoftware. High quality software utilities. Reasonable prices.

Posted by at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 30, 2004

CalendarScript 3.2

Just bumped into a new calendar program called Calendar Script 3.2. I came across it on a library website.

I made a point of checking it out because of its nice clean look. Features include multiple views, multi-user support, repeating events, custom event type, templates, optional approval process, search. Read about more features...

Interesting thing about this calendar program is that it is all Perl based. No MySQL required just Perl5 and a web server with CGI execution enabled. Not sure if that's good or bad....

Posted by at 2:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 8, 2004

The Latest in Audio Tours

We've all done those tours where you put on a headset and walk around the museum, plug in to each exhibit and get a nice audio presentation about what you're looking at. Well, it seems soon we'll be able to do that at the graveyard too.

Robert Barrows, an enterprising man from Burlingame, has designed a system that allows folks to embed video messages into their gravestones. Sounds like he hasn't worked out all the kinks yet but you might be able to make the gravestone players coin-operated or swipable by a credit card, or maybe the cemetary could rent out the appropriate headsets so headphoned visitors could walk around listening to headstones privately. What did he say?

The inventor suggests this might be a way to ensure you get the last word in an argument (although couldn't the survivor record their rebuttal for posterity too?) or might serve as a handy way to leave warm and cuddly words for your survivors to listen to (whenever they pass through the graveyard with the proper headset and their credit card in hand - skip the flowers).

For more on this fascinating development, see BBC News World Edition.

Posted by at 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 26, 2004

Google's Glory Days...

A recent article appearing on CNET reports that a study by Vividence shows that Google isn't a whole lot more accurate than some of its competitors and that it is the clean, uncluttered interface that attracts most users -- whether they know it or not.

As a result, of course, the competitors are laying plans to come up with their own stripped down interfaces. You may have already seen Yahoo's and Amazon's.

The other attractive aspect of Google in my book is the fact that ads are clearly ads rather than being disguised as search results. I wonder if this is another subconscous reason people are more comfortable there. In fact, the study notes that Google isn't so good at getting people to click on the ads for this very reason.

With others catching on that maniacal interfaces don't appeal to everyone, they might start getting more users to use their search engines. And since they are better at getting those clickthroughs for advertisers, it could pose problems for Google.

With Google going public, what's the chance that they will continue to be okay to give up this potential revenue -- the revenue accrued by fooling people into clicking on ad links because they think they are hit results. We'll see. I'm just so cranky about the state of the world right now, I don't feel very hopeful.

Are Google's glory days coming to an end?

Posted by at 8:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 24, 2004

Online Discussion Forum Software

I did some research on free and/or open source and/or inexpensive online discussion forum software and thought I'd share some of what I found.

PHPBB

Free, open-source. PHP based (obviously) and runs on MySQL, PostgreSQL and others. It's had some issues with security vulnerabilities so check the support forums for how well these are being resolved. Currently at version 2.08.

Unlimited forums can be organised into as many categories as you like
Private forums and those only for specified user groups
Search capability
Polls can be added to posts
Email notification of replies to your topics
Topic subscription capability
Forum, user and group permission management

w-agora

Free, open-source. PHP based and runs on MySQL, PostgreSQL and others.

Email notification of replies to your topics
Three levels of administration
Forums can be public, private, restricted or registered
Search capability
Powerful forum, user and group permission management

vBulletin

Inexpensive. PHP based and runs on MySQL.

Permission system, based on user, usergroup or forums
Search capability
Supports multiple private and public calendars
Unlimited forums/posts
Email notification
Polls
Moderators and super-moderators
Calendar and forum moderation

Anyone using any of these? Sure would love to hear what you think of them. Point us to your site if you are using them for your library!

Posted by at 2:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 5, 2004

Are Your Properly Patched?

With the proliferation of all the worms these days...the Sasser worm being the most recent one, I decided to take another step to ensure I was properly patched. Seems like all the junk floating around has to be the result of people who think they've done the right thing but haven't. It can't JUST be a bunch of irresponsible blokes causing all this trouble...can it?

I decided to try out
Microsoft's Baseline Security Analyzer V1.2 (MBSA). Using this handy tool, I found that I had not installed the updates necessary for my Office XP programs and the MBSA helped me locate the place to get that update. To my chagrin...I was potentially one of the irresponbile blokes. Sigh.

If you don't know about the MBSA, here's a nice FAQ about it.

To summarize, MBSA is the next generation of the MPSA, Microsoft Personal Security Advisor. It does everything MPSA did plus "performs additional application checks (e.g., IIS, SQL) and can be used to scan both servers and workstations, locally and remotely over the network."

It can be run on the following operating systems:
Windows? 2000 Server
Windows 2000 Professional
Windows XP Home Edition
Windows XP Professional
Windows Server 2003

Network Admins...it can be run over the network against Microsoft Windows NT? 4.0 Server and Windows NT 4.0 Workstation, Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Workstation, Windows XP Professional and Home Edition systems, and Windows Server 2003!

What it does (from the FAQ ):
MBSA V1.2 scans for security misconfigurations in Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) 4.0, 5.0, and 6.0, Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) 5.01+, Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 and 2000, and Microsoft Office 2000, XP, and 2003.

It's very easy to understand. Basically, if you see a red flag, you should fix it. It's that simple.

And in case you thought you were all patched up because you use the Windows Update feature, think again. Even if you don't download, install and run the MBSE, you should take a trip to the Office Updates page at the URL below:

Office Updates - http://office.microsoft.com/OfficeUpdate/

Posted by at 8:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 28, 2004

Your Password for Chocolate?

There was a column in the NY Times Sunday by Gary Rivlin, "Pssss, Computers Users . . . Want Some Candy?" in which the author describes a demonstration done by computer security experts who offered up a chocolate bar in exchange for a person's computer password (outside of a London subway).

70% of those asked gave up their password for the chocolate.

The article goes on to explain that the primary reason people are so cavalier about giving up their passwords, and probably computer security in general, is because they don't understand it.

The extent to which people don't take computer security seriously can be understood by the number of post it notes with passwords written on them, the number of times you use the same password for different services and websites, the number of times your password can be found in a dictionary (within seconds by a snappy little program) or the number of times your password is your child/pet/spouse's name. These are all bad ideas.

Good passwords are difficult to remember precisely because they aren't words and they aren't names of your beloved. Things like "9*idhx89r" are good passwords.

Why care?

Well, I care because I'm getting pounded with unwanted mail and allegedly returned mail. The latter are messages that come back to me as if I sent them but in fact I did not send them. These are "spoofed emails." They are the results of OTHER people not being careful about things like passwords and viruses and firewall protection....basic security stuff.

Passwords are Step 1. Make them difficult to guess (and unfortunately difficult to remember). And change them often. If you need help remembering passwords, use a program like BeSafe that stores all your passwords (encrypted for safety) on your Palm and your computer.

Step 2. Install virus scanning software AND make sure your subscription is always up-to-date. It isn't enough to install McAfee and call it a day. You have to pay for the subscription. Make sure you set up the program to automatically update the virus definitions (the file that looks for the latest, greatest viruses). If your virus definitions are EVER more than a day or two old, you are at risk for becoming one of those people who is sending the rest of us the SPAM, PORN and SPOOFED email.

If you use Symantec/Norton products, go here for the latest virus definitions and product updates.

For McAfee, go here.

Step 3. If you are on a cable or DSL connection at home...be sure to use a firewall. Both Symantec/Norton and McAfee have software firewall options that are sold separately or as part of an Internet security bundle. Use the links above to check them out. The Internet security packages are worth their weight in gold. If you have an "always on" Internet connection, do your duty and buy one of them.

If you aren't covering these three basics, you aren't being a responsible netizen. No one is out there doing it for you. There aren't millions of people writing billions of viruses and sending out barrels of SPAM. There are a bunch of those people. It's the rest of us, we millions, that handle the distribution for them.

I love the Internet, you love the Internet, let's get back to it....but as the Hill Street Blues sergeant used to say..."Hey, let's be careful out there."

Posted by at 9:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

April 13, 2004

Backups

How often do you actually performs backups of data on your PC? I know I've been pretty bad about doing it because I haven't had a drive large enough to accommodate all the data easily. Every once in a while I'd copy everything from my desktop to my laptop or retire folders to a CD but I wasn't being systematic nor frequent about doing it.

For one thing, trying to copy only the changed files was a big pain because you had to go folder by folder and sort by date. And copying everything again took too long.

So when friends of the family got their online backup service off the ground, I signed up. And boy was I happy I did. More on that in a minute.

I'm guessing you don't know what I mean by online backup service. Here's the idea. You load a piece of software that runs automatically on a schedule you set-up to backup all the files you want backed up. You pick the folders and each night (or however many times a day or week you want to do it) the folders are backed up. You don't gotta do nothin.

The first backup takes a long time but after that, only the changed files are backed up. Files that are unchanged since the last aren't blindly copied to the online service so each day's backup happens quickly and behind the scenes. You don't have to get involved at all. The service uses a fabulous encryption program (LZW) and is secure (Blowfish encryption). All in all, it totally rocks!

My Sad Tale - with a happy ending
Now to the part about why I was so happy I had signed up. Well, shortly after I got started with the service, I decided to demo some filtering software (no, Im not going to tell you which one). In my defense, the documentation did not say "Don't try this at home" or I would have gotten technical assistance with the install. I just followed the prompts and was trying it out. Well, I didn't get very far when I determined it wasn't working at all how I thought it should be. Ultimately, my attempts to fix the filter installation thoroughly hosed my system. Though the filter company valiantly tried to help, there was nothing to do but reinstall XP. My installation of XP has never been the same -- sadly. But that's another story.

The good news is that the restoration of all my data was a snap. I'm still using that backup service and can heartily recommend it to anyone else who is being as recalcitrant as I was.

What to look for in a backup service
Online backup services are a great idea for secure offsite storage but you need to be sure your service does indeed HAVE a secure facility. The software that gets loaded onto your PC needs to be stable and play well with others AND provide the kind of flexibility you need in terms of scheduling and file selection. It needs to have good compression and encryption so the data gets moved quickly and safely. And it needs to be responsible about resource utilization so the rest of the system doesn't grind to a halt.

I've found all these above needs are met with the service I signed up with, Data Salvation Is there a Data heaven? A Data hell? Are you praying for your beloved Data to return? -- but there are others to consider including US Data Trust and LiveVault.

The important thing is to start backing up your data. As Jerry Newman says during KQED pledge breaks, get off your good intentions.

P.S. Email me if you end up signing up with Data Salvation because I can get you the family discount. Afterall, aren't all library workers family?

Posted by at 5:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

March 29, 2004

Spyware, Adware and Friends

Have you noticed that you're getting pop-up ads that are somehow more targeted to your interests than they used to be? Is your computer running more and more slowly?

Could be you are experiencing an invasion of spyware! Huh?

For an easy-to-read backgrounder, check out The Christian Science Monitor's Is your computer spying on you?". The article defines the different forms of spyware including browser hijackers, keyloggers, malware and spybots. It explains that spyware is different from cookies and explains why spyware can be dangerous.

The article recommends some useful tools for keeping a handle on these sneaky, annoying programs. Here are the free ones they mention:

I'm planning to give Spybot a run because in addition to rooting out the "uninvited Web-borne flotsam" it also has some other utilities I'm interested in including a file shredder, the ability to block adware servers and a tool for controlling what apps load when I start my computer. I'll let you know how it goes......

Posted by at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

February 23, 2004

My Blogroll

I've been using Bloglines for the last several weeks and finding it sure is handy to have all the blogs I want to read available on the Web instead of on one of my PCs.

As a result, I've created my public Blogroll to share with anyone who is interested. A blogroll is a collection of all the blogs a person is reading. Bloglines allows you to share some or all of the blogs you are reading via their aggregator.

Here's mine: http://www.bloglines.com/public/galecia

I'm going to work on some special blogrolls via theme...stay tuned. First up is a blogroll of libraries using blogging on their public library site.....

Lori

Posted by at 4:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 10, 2003

Windows98 Retiring

Microsoft is retiring some of its products including Windows 98 per an article on news.com.com. They say they'll continue to support Win98 for free for another month. Hmmm, time to give Linux and Open Office a try?

Posted by at 9:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 21, 2003

Really Portable Storage

A 128MB Hard Drive that is the smaller than the light on my keychain and fits into any USB port...now that is one excellent idea! I saw Mary Minow use this device to pop her PowerPoint presentation into my laptop for the mini-demo at the Infopeople booth. No worrying about drives or whether I had brought my external CD drive or floppy drive for her to use (which I had not). Now that's portable!

There are three interfaces to consider when you start shopping for portable storage devices. The one described above is an example of a USB Flash drive. USB Flash drives come in two USB standards USB 1.1 and USB 2.0. The USB 2.0 drives are MUCH faster so you might want to hold out until more of those come out and you have the USB 2.0 port on your PC. Per Plextor "only more-recently manufactured motherboards like those from Intel, ABIT, Soyo, and others, support USB 2.0, and most of those provide USB 2.0 driver support for Microsoft Windows XP only."

To check if your PC supports USB 2.0, go into Device Manager, click on View and sort the list by connection. Expand all the USB trees, look for an Enhanced USB controller.

The third interface is IEEE 1394 (Firewire). You probably don't have a Firewire card but this is something to think about down the road. I'd consider getting one for backing up my PC. But it's not practical for taking my PowerPoint on the road because most people's computers don't yet have a IEEE 1394 port.

PC Magazine offers up some useful reviews of storage devices including these snappy little USB drives. You might want to peruse them before making any purchases. Especially noteworthy are the speedtests showing the difference between USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 and IEEE 1394 interfaces.

Here's a smattering of products to consider:

USB Flash Drives
Iomega sells 128MB, 256MB, 512MB, and 1GB versions.

M Systems sells a Smart DiskonKey with capacity from 1GB to 8GB.

How about Kanguru's USB Drive that is also a wireless LAN adapter?

Then there are the novelty USB/Flash drives that come in ideal little holiday packages such as the one featured on TechZone. Altogether you get an MP3 player, FM radio, voice recorder and ear plug style headphones along with your 256MB USB drive. And get this! It all hangs around your neck serving to geekily accessorize any outfit you choose! All for $149.

I just bought the SanDisk Cruzer Mini for $57 at CDW. It holds 256MB (USB2 with USB 1.1 backwards compatibility). I'll let you know how it goes.

PC Card Drive
And to that person in my troubleshooting class who asked if PC Cards can be used to store data...I was wrong. Here's one right here, from Toshiba.

Multiple Media Type Readers
Kanguru has come up with a mobile media appliance that allows you to use the little memory sticks and memory cards you use in your digital camera for storage. Check out Kanguru for lots of portable media products.

Here's another that uses a USB port to do the same. It's SanDisk's Cruzer and SanDisk also has lots of other portable storage devices.

Firewire aka IEEE 1394
SmartDisk FireFly and EZQuest Cobra Slim FireWire are a couple examples of the IEEE 1394 devices but you certainly can't count on everyone having one of these in their laptop for exchanging files....yet.

Combo USB/Firewire

WiebeTech MicroGB has come out with a 30GB drive with one USB 2.0 and two IEEE 1394 interfaces; you can power it through the IEEE 1394 jacks or use it with the included AC adapter. SimpleTech is another manufacturer to check out for some of all the above.

These are all the rage and changing fast, so expect to buy something different shortly after you make your first foray into portable storage.

Posted by at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 11, 2003

Super Quiet PC

In phase two of putting my money where my mouth is, I purchased a Super Quiet PC from ARM Systems in Rohnert Park. I'm reselling ARM's PCs on my website so I thought I should put one to use so I could provide any necessary personal testimonials even though you'll find ARM computers all through the Sonoma County school districts.

The thing that really caught my eye about ARM was a) their "stealth PC" and b) their high quality product and c) their personal service. So let's talk about each of these things in order:

Stealth PC aka "Galecia Silent Solution"
This computer is designed from top to bottom to be a PC that is seen but not heard. The case is a stealthy black and is designed to reduce noise while increasing air flow. I like this way of thinking. From cooling fans to CPU cooler to power supply and hard drive...all the components are selected for their cool and quiet characteristics.

Simply put, you can't even tell the thing is on. I can barely hear the fan and can only hear the hard drive gurgle if I pay extremely close attention. It's fantastic! I don't know about you but the constant hum of electronics is really starting to wear my down. This PC offers some welcome relief to that ever present gray noise.

High Quality Product
ARM is an Intel Premier Provider and uses all top-notch components. They were classified by The Gartner Group as a "Leading System Builder." They build custom systems for a wide-variety of uses (servers, laptops, engineering and CAD desktops, office PCs and gaming computers. Here's some of the ARM clients I find most interesting: Petaluma School District, Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space, Santa Rosa City Schools, Los Alamos National Laboratory, West Sonoma Union School District and Veterans Medical Research at UCSD.

Personal Service
ARM provides several warranty programs much like the programs the big Tier One vendors like Dell and Gateway offer. You can get the standard two year warranty on parts and labor on hardware plus one year on-site. Or you can upgrade (for around $150) to the full three year on-site warranty. One key difference with ARM is that they will actually do what needs to be done without you having to spend hours on the phone with five different support techs, each of whom walk you through reinstalling Windows before they decide they sent you a bad RAM chip.

Strangely enough, the fabulously quiet PC hasn't found its way into a library yet....sure hope we can change that.

Posted by at 7:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mozilla Thunderbird and Calendar

Okay, I decided to put my money where my mouth is and go another step deeper into the world of open-source productivity software. I just bought a snappy new computer (more on that in another post) and decided to try out Mozilla's Thunderbird email product and Mozilla's Calendar in place of Outlook.

Sad thing is that I had to install Outlook on my nice new computer just so I could get the messages from my old PC to the new one. That's because Outlook uses a proprietary message format unlike Mozilla and Eudora (just to name a couple). Once my messages were uploaded into Outlook, I could then use Thunderbird to pull in all my messages.

Surprisingly, that all worked pretty well! Thunderbird created my Outlook folders as a subset of folders under a folder they ingeniously named "Outlook Mail." The good thing about that is that I'm able to rework my whole folder structure (which had gotten quite out of hand) without having to change everything all at once. I can just scroll down to my legacy Outlook Mail folder if I need to dig out something old.

If you're using Eudora, you probably won't see much benefit to switching to Thunderbird (except that Thunderbird is a way cooler name than Eudora...well, I guess it's just cooler if you're into birds but not cooler if you're into witches). Anyway, some of the features Im enjoying are color coding my messages and marking messages "to do" when there's an action item for me contained therein. I'm also delighted to see that it has a decent spam blocker and when it misses junk mail, I just click "Junk" and it is disappeared (yes, I'm using "disappeared" as a verb). With Outlook, riding my mail of junk mail and marking it as junk mail was at LEAST a two step process.

I also like that you can "collect addresses" in one address book without cluttering up your main address book. In Outlook, you can ask it to add addresses to Contacts every time you write a message to someone or reply to one....but pretty soon you have entries like info@balance_int.com that you don't really want. With Mozilla, you can stick them in one place to have, in case you need them, but they won't clutter up your real address books.

I didn't have quite as much luck with Mozilla's calendar. Although it looks nice and I was able to load my Outlook appointments into it (as a CSV file), there's something amiss with the installation. Opening calendar is slow as is everything I try to do with it. The calendar product is pretty beta right now so I'm going to pretend nothing happened with that and come back later.

Posted by at 3:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

September 4, 2003

Fun with Calendars

Everybody seems to need to create calendars for their website so I've put together some links that might put calendars within reach of your library. I'll start with open-source options first (of course).... (-:

Open Source
WebCalendar
WebCalendar is a feature-rich option including multi-user support, day/month/year-at-a-glance options, repeating events, custom event fields, reminders, conflict checking and exportable to your Palm. Here's the event editing screen.

Mozilla
Using Mozilla Calendar, you can create calendars locally (on your own PC) and publish them with other tools. Here's what the Mozilla site suggests:

To share your calendars, you need access to a webDAV server. If you run your own web server, you can install mod_dav, a free Apache module that will turn your web server into a webDAV server. Instructions on how to set it up are on their website. Once you set up your webDAV server, you can publish your calendar to the site, then subscribe to it from any other Mozilla Calendar. Automatically updating the calendar will give you a poor man's calendar server.

Here's another link for using Mac OS X to publish iCal calendars.

Of course, if you're using Outlook (which stores data in a non-open format), none of the data stored there can be handily imported into your Mozilla Calendar. However, it can be done by exporting them to an .ics file and then import them into Mozilla Calendar.

Kronolith + iCalendar
Another open source option is Kronolith. It is part of the Horde Framework. This application "provides a stable and featureful individual calendar system". It allows repeating events, all-day events, custom fields, keywords, and managing multiple users through Horde Authentication. The calendar API that Kronolith uses is abstracted such that it could work with most any backend database and it supports importing and exporting into iCalendar which is what you'd use to publish your calendar to the web.

PHP iCalendar
PHP iCalendar is on version 0.9.3. It is described as "a php-based iCal file parser. Its based on v2.0 of the IETF spec. It displays iCal files in a nice logical, clean manner with day, week, month, and year navigation, printer view, RSS-enabled, and searchable. It supports 12 languages, is fully theme-able, and has complete timezone support."

Cheap But Not Open Source
EventKeeper
EventKeeper provides a very affordable product at $195/year for up to 300 events and it doesn't require you to know a stitch of PHP. It's a perfect product for simple event calendars. You can categorize items and display different events for different purposes like this library that has a library-sponsored events calendar as well as a community meetings calendar.

There's a demo available on their site so you can see what's involved in adding an event to the calendar.

WebEvent Publish
WebEvent Publish might be a good choice if you can't handle open-source products but need more functionality than you get with EventKeeper. It is available to license or you can use their hosted version. Here's some pricing info:

Licensed versions starts at $1,600 for 10 calendars/users ($1,200 for non-profits)
Hosted version starts at $975 per year for 10 calendars/users ($764 for non-profits).

Features include customizable fields, repeating fields, reminders, muliple calendar views, event submission, search and block scheduling.

Here's an example of WebEvent in use at a library.

Posted by at 6:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 29, 2003

Aspell Spell Checker

lii.org has introduced a spellchecker product that is pretty slick. It's an open-source product that can probably be engineered into one of your applications to help your patrons. Try it out here.

It's called Aspell and here's how it's "maintainer," Kevin Atkinson introduces it: GNU Aspell is a Free and Open Source spell checker designed to eventually replace Ispell. It can either be used as a library or as an independent spell checker. Its main feature is that it does a much better job of coming up with possible suggestions than just about any other spell checker out there for the English language, including Ispell and Microsoft Word. It also has many other technical enhancements over Ispell such as using shared memory for dictionaries and intelligently handling personal dictionaries when more than one Aspell process is open at once.

Posted by at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)