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Time Management for System Administrators 2006 July 25

Awhile back the author of Time Management for System Administrators, Thomas A. Limoncelli, came to speak at LUG/IP. He gave a great speech and inspired me to read his book. After reading his book, I implimented many of his ideas, most notably I started to use a Personal Analog Assistant (PAA). For those who didn’t read his book, it is basically a paper version of a PDA. Specifically, I used the makecal created by Dave Harding. I used it for a good two months and it worked great. However, I ran out of printouts about a month ago and never got around to making new printouts. What a mistake. While I don’t think I’ve been all that less productive, I’ve been feeling less organized at work. Of course, I’ve still been using Tom’s other advice, so I didn’t slip back all that way back to life before the PAA, but I’ve certainly seemed to have been finding myself a little less focused. Anyway, I printed out a few more PAA sheets today and I should be back on track in no time. If you work with computers, especially as a Systems Administrator (or Systems Librarian), you owe it to yourself to read his book. BTW: There are two reviews on the LUG/IP website for your reading pleasure.

Accessible Search 2006 July 21

I just heard that Google has announced Accessible Search. This is a great thing for libraries to know about if they server any visual impared clients. I haven’t used it much (yet), but it looks pretty good.

From the Accessible Search FAQ

Accessible Search is an early Google Labs product designed to identify and prioritize search results that are more easily usable by blind and visually impaired users. Regular Google search helps you find a set of documents that is most relevant to your tasks. Accessible Search goes one step further by helping you find the most accessible pages in that result set.

It is interesting to look at the different search results. For example, if you search for “Library” in regular Google, New York Public Library comes in as the 5′th hit., while I didn’t notice it in the top 250* in Accessible Search.

*Well, there was a style guide page off their website buried somewhere below 100, but I don’t think that counts.

OCLC to Open WorldCat Searching to the World 2006 July 17

I just read on the Infotoday web site that OCLC [is going] to Open WorldCat Searching to the World. While I like the idea of anyone being able to search WorldCat, I’m not sure I am really in favor of this move because like the existing Open WorldCat program, which people can use Google, Yahoo!, and other sites to search WorldCat, libraries that put their records into WorldCat are not automatically included. They have to pay for the right to be in there via a subscription to WorldCat. This means that if a library does not subscribe, they don’t get a link to their holdings. While, I understand OCLC wants to make a profit (even though they are a nonprofit cooperative), this program ends up harming libraries that are not paying for a subscription – even if they contribute records to OCLC. If it was only that their holdings didn’t show up, it wouldn’t be so bad. Unfortunately, a user has no easy way to know that their local library isn’t included. Because of this, they may assume that their library doesn’t have an item it really does, and then the person may go elsewhere for the item (like to a bookstore) and the person won’t visit the library to see if they have it. If OCLC made it clear that not all libraries in the area are included, it wouldn’t be so bad. However, they do not make it clear at all. In fact, I had to do a number of different searches just to prove to myself that one local library wasn’t included. I’m not sure how much a subscription to WorldCat costs, but with the budget crunch in New Jersey, it is difficult to see many libraries having extra funding to expose their holdings this way. However, they may start having to if they want mind-share, which means funds will have to be diverted from other resources.

NST event at New Egypt cancelled 2006 July 15

I just read on the Trackchasers Yahoo! group that New Egypt cancelled the National Sprint Tour Event scheduled for Tuesday, August 1 (or as Guy Smith titled his post “The Rats Jump the Sinking Ship.” Here are more details:

The necessity to postpone ticket sales after the untimely death of
National Sprint Tour promoter Fred Brownfield on June 16, and the
uncertainty of the Brownfield family’s involvement in the series
following the tragedy, has led New Egypt Speedway management to
cancel their NST event, scheduled for Tuesday, August 1.

New Egypt Speedway promoters and the new owners of the National
Sprint Tour have agreed to reschedule the event in 2007.

All those who purchased advance tickets for New Egypt’s August 1 show
will receive a full refund. Call the track office at (609) 758-1900
for refund procedures.

I guess I won’t be making it to my first race of the season at New Egypt anytime soon now.

LiB on Stepen Abram’s keynote at 2020 Vision Conference 2006 July 12

The Librarian in Black has a post on her blog about Stephen Abram’s keynote on serving digital natives at the 2020 Vision Conference: Idaho Library Challenges of the Future. It is an interesting post on Abrahm’s thoughts on the future of the library. I’m not really sure I agree with all of Abraham’s views, but it is an interesting read. One thing that stood out to me was the part about Information Literacy. LiB wrote “[Abrams] talked about how our users want to find not search. We offers search skills class, but not finding skills classes. Teaching “information literacy” classes are worse–asking people to acknowledge a form of illiteracy. ” I never really thought about that, but it is an interesting point. Maybe we need to rethink about that term. Anyway, if you are interested in thinking about the library of the future, read the post.

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck? 2006 July 10

Thanks to the February 1, 1996 issue of The Cornell Chronicle, I now have an answer to the age-old question “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?” Apparently the answer is about 700 pounds of wood.

Juan Pablo Montoya to race in NASCAR Nextel Cup 2006 July 9

Wow! This was not anything I would have expected. I am watching a press conference right now with Jaun Pablo Montoya and Chip Ganassi. Montoya will be leaving F-1 to race NASCAR Nextel Cup. Montoya, IMO, is one of the top F-1 drivers, so it will be interesting to see how a top F-1 driver makes the transition to the [comparably] under-powered and over-weight taxi cab-looking cars of NASCAR.

Mid-season race watching review 2006 July 7

On January 20′th I set my 2006 race seeing goals. The main goals were 6 new states, 13 new tracks, and less races then last year (when I saw 48). Since it is now July, I figured I’d see where I am half way through the year. Well, the report is pretty much that I am right on track. I have seen races in three new states (Mississippi, South Carolina, and Louisiana). I am ahead of schedule with new tracks having been to 11 new ones so far and I am below the 48 race pace I set last year (having been to only 17 thus far). A few interesting things that come to mind for me. First is that I’ve seen 17 races at 14 different tracks with only the Chili Bowl being a repeat trip this year, and that I haven’t seen an outdoor race in New Jersey yet this season and the only outdoor track I’ve been to this year that I’ve been to before is Orange County (NY) – a track I haven’t been to in years. My goal of track diversity seems alive and well.

I’m not sure if I’ll make the 6 states I wanted to get too, but I should easily make it to my goal of 150 life-time tracks since I have six months to get two tracks.

“New Jersey: Closed” 2006 July 5

I heard a good new slogan for the State of New Jersey today on the radio. It is “New Jersey: Closed.” For those of you who don’t know, the State doesn’t have a new budget for FY2007, so all non-essential services have been shut down. The caller to the radio station (WXTU) came up with the slogan while he and the DJ was discussing the new official Pennsylvania bumper sticker that has the saying “I break for Shoofly Pie” on it. The sticker was chosen by Internet voting. Yet more evidence that any online poles/voting open to anyone is probably, at best, skeptical. I’m not sure what would be worse, living in a state that has closed, or a commonwealth that breaks for shoofly pie.

Spamalot

In Monday, July 3 I went to see Monty Python’s Spamalot on Broadway. Before the show we went to an upscale raw-food restaurant called Pure Food and Wine – who knew that such a thing even existed? I am not really a raw food person, let alone a vegetarian, but the restaurant was really nice and the food was outstanding, but the next time we go, we are going to plan to stay there longer. The have a 5 course tasting menu that sounded really good, but the waitress told us that it takes about 2 hours to eat. Since we had to get to the theater we didn’t have time.

Our seats for Spamalot were on the first row of the balcony. They were pretty good seats were we could see the whole stage, but we were kind of looking down a little bit – but not anywhere enough to take away from the enjoyment of the show. There really isn’t much to say about the plot of the play that fans of Monty Python wouldn’t already know (yes, there is a plot) without giving anything away. However, I can tell you that I couldn’t stop laughing and it was an excellent show and if you even thought about seeing it, I would highly recommend it.