I’ve just returned after a complete whirlwind of a week. I spent 5 days in New Orleans at ALA, then drove to Columbus, OH for the Origins game fair, the second largest gaming convention in the country. So much stuff to talk about, but I’m completely exhausted. So instead of writing, you all get: My Week In Pictures!
Why Would Anyone Listen to These Three?
Originally uploaded by Wandering Eyre.
Great pic by Michelle Boule, just prior to the LITA presentation that she chaired and I, Karen Coombs (to stage left in the photo), and Steven Bell took part in. The presentation was titled “Next Step Blogging” and will be revealed in its entirety on LITABlog (as soon as Karen Schneider finishes it up…). My slides can be found here. It went remarkably well, with an absolute standing-room-only audience. Next time we need a bigger boat.
As of tomorrow morning, I’ll be on my way to the Big Easy for the American Library Association conference. For those attending, if you see me, say “hi!” and make sure and attend the Monday 10:30 LITA Session “Next Step Blogging: Building a professional blog for your library” so that you may heckle me. It’s in the Convention Center Room 342. I’m also going to be out and attending a lot of the blogger shindigs, so I’m sure I’ll run into bunches of you.
I’m planning on blogging as much of the conference as I can, both here and over at LITABLog. There will be text, pictures, and other goodies…Stay tuned!
No, we didn’t go back in time, and I didn’t delete a bunch of posts.
Something happened at LISHost last night, and some of the databases were corrupted, so my blog is back to last Sunday’s backup.
I’m not quite sure what recreating the posts will do to my RSS feed, so those of you subscribing that way may get some dupes as I recreate and back-date a few posts. Sorry about any duplication…
Just a reminder to anyone that cares: My presentation for HigherEd BlogCon goes live tomorrow! I’d love to hear from anyone who makes it through the whole thing…it took a ton of work to put together. I know that there are some problems with the timing on some of the screencast, but I don’t think anything actually effects the meaning behind the cast.
I’ll be available on the HigherEd BlogCon site tomorrow, answering questions in the comments section of the blog.
Here’s another Web 2.0 opportunity for someone out there: We’ve got an online word processor (several, actually), like Writely, and a ton of other online productivity software.
Well, I want an online spreadsheet. Betsy and I are trying to do a budget for some things we’re interested in doing this spring, and having one online would be SO much easier. We could both update, etc.
Anyone know of the sort of thing I’m looking for?
A new blog product launched today with less fanfare than I’d imagine: Lyceum, from ibiblio.org, a multi-user WordPress fork. It is designed to allow for one installation which supports multiple individual blogs, something that WordPress users have been looking for for a LONG time.
I’m planning on trying it out locally, and seeing if it is suitable for a university installation. I can’t imagine that it is anything short of brilliant, coming from Ibiblio. You can test an installation at their demo site, and see what the backend looks like. It’s pretty much WordPress, for those that use it, with a few administrator tools thrown in.
For those of us at an academic institution, this might be the answer to our blogging prayers…single install, multiple instantiations, all built on the most versitile blogging platform out today.
EDIT: Also seen on BoingBoing! Go Paul!
I’m currently a beta tester for ClaimID, a new project from some of the brilliant minds that revolve around ibiblio.org. The “about” page for the project describes it like this:
Imagine that you are applying for a job. You know that your prospective employer is going to search for your name online, and since you’re a rational person, that worries you. How will your employer know what online stuff is actually about you, and not about that other person who shares your name? And what if the good stuff about you online doesn’t mention your full name, or uses a name you no longer go by (such as a maiden name)? How would your prospective employer ever find it? Why do you have to lose out in the eyes of that employer? And the worst part is there’s no way for you to easily influence what search engines say about you.
Enter claimID. ClaimID is a service that lets you claim the information that is about you online. That information is then associated with your name, providing folks an easy way to see what is and isn’t about you online. In doing so, you get to influence the search engines, and provide people more relevant information when they search for you. It’s time to reclaim some power back from the search engines. ClaimID is about letting you have some say in what search engines say about you.
So it’s a method of tracking the various places online where things about me are. Which to me, is a useful thing, but I’ll be interested to see if this is something that the public at large even thinks about, much less will work to track. As well, I’m interested to see how they plan to “influence the search engines.”
If anyone else wants to see/play with this, my beta code is good for 5 more activations. Leave a comment, and I’ll hook you up.
As a cow-orker pointed out, I missed celebrating my blogiversary! On Feb 10, this thing has been around for 3 years. Over the course of those years, this is the third software system I’ve used (started in Blogger, moved to Radio Userland, then to WordPress). Since Feb 10, 2003:
Seems really odd to have that many years behind me since I started this. Even more odd? It looks like people actually read it. đŸ™‚ This year, I’ve averaged 161 people per day hitting my RSS feed, and 1100 or so Sessions per day. Raw hits are over 6000 a day, which blows my mind, and has to be hugely because of spambots and such. The rest of the stats are equally interesting, though:
So thanks to everyone who reads, subscribes or just wanders by occasionally. I do this mostly for me, but I certainly appreciate the fact that others think it’s worth their time.