Category: Personal

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Personal Technology

TechSource Post: Saving Your Digital Life

Just put a new post up over at ALA TechSource: Saving Your Digital Life. Here’s a blurb:

I have, basically, three kinds of data that I’m worried about protecting in some way: working files, files that are important but replaceable, and files that I can’t afford to lose at all. Working files are just that: files that I’m currently working on for whatever reason. Might be a photo I’m editing, or a document, or an MP3 that I need to move to another computer…anything that requires action. Files that are important, but replaceable, are things that make my life easier if they are in digital form, mostly media. DVDs I’ve purchased and CDs I own have all been digitized, because I want to be able to watch them when I want and not when I remember to have a disk of plastic with me. I also want to be able to move them to my iPhone or other portable media player. If I lose the digital, it’s ok, because I can just re-digitize them, but I really, really don’t want to have to do that. And finally, there are the files that I just can’t lose for any reason. Things like tax returns, photos of my daughter, receipts, and other digital items that need to be safe even if there’s a natural disaster.

So how do I handle all of this? With one piece of hardware, a few pieces of software, and broadband.

Go read the whole thing if you’re interested in how I handle MY digital life.

Categories
Personal Technology

Hack of the week: Dropbox

I’m really particular about the background images on my computers. I like dark, subdued backgrounds that don’t attract the eye. I do like pictures, but ones that highlight any icons easily and don’t strain my eyes trying to find what I’m looking for. As a result, I’ve spent years collecting images that I like, upgrading to higher and higher resolutions as my monitors got better and better. I’ve got tons of fractals, dark photos, and other such images that I just prefer to have as my desktops.

Oh, and a few pictures of Eliza, of course.

So previously, I’ve kept a copy of this “Wallpapers” folder at the root of whatever computer I’m using, and set the system to use that as images for the desktop. But then if I find a new image I like, I’ve got to remember to distribute it to my laptop, and my home desktop, and my work desktop…blah.

Dropbox

Enter: Dropbox. Now hopefully everyone knows how amazingly awesome dropbox is by now, but if you don’t, just click that link and sign up for it. Trust me. Dropbox creates a folder on each of your computers that you install it on, and a folder in the cloud, and keeps all of them in sync all the time. You get 2 gigs free, and can pay for extra space as you need it.

I just realized that I can now put a Wallpapers folder inside my Dropbox, and it will propagate to every machine. I can set my desktop pics to choose from that folder, and anytime I find a new one, it will automagically sync to all the others with no effort from me. So all my pics will be the same on all my machines, no matter which I find and add from. It’s a little thing, but it makes me happy.

Categories
Personal

Duck Prosciutto

I am drooling just looking at these pictures of Duck Prosciutto. Seriously.

ruhlman.com: Duck Prosciutto

Categories
Digital Culture Legal Issues Personal

Hackintosh




hackintosh

Originally uploaded by griffey.

This is the “About This Mac” screen from what is not an Apple product at all. After seeing the sale that Dell was having a few weeks ago, and getting my first royalty check from my book, I decided to splurge a bit and grab a Dell Mini 9. I had a copy of OS X 10.5.6 that I got when I bought the Mac Box Set a few months ago when upgrading my iLife and iWork, so I was covered on the legal copy of OS X.

After that, it was a reasonable simple matter. I’ll throw together a separate post with the directions I followed. What I mainly wanted to note here was how incredibly well the Mini 9 runs OS X. Seriously solid, and with NO hesitation. It’s kind of mind-blowing.

Categories
ALA Library Issues Personal

LITA Election Endorsements

I would like to offer my personal endorsement of the following candidates for LITA offices for this election cycle:

Aaron Dobbs and Maurice York for Councilors at Large. Both Aaron and Maurice have worked behind the scenes for years to improve the way that LITA does things, and I think having them on the Board will help move LITA forward. I know both of them well, and have worked with both at a national level with LITA, and would be thrilled to see them as members of the Board.

I would also like to endorse Karen Starr for Vice-President. Her personal statement says “The innovators and leaders of tomorrow are the LITA members of today. It is refreshing to work with a dynamic group on the national level who care, who want to define that future and who come together to work on what the big picture should look like.” I believe that the time has come to define our future.

Please remember to vote, and I hope that you take my recommendation to the polls!

This endorsement represents my personal opinion and is in no way reflective of any committee, interest group, or other unit of LITA or ALA.

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Personal

Go Mocs! Go Mocs!

Categories
Library Issues Personal

Movers & Shakers 2009

I am overjoyed to be included in the Library Journal 2009 list of Movers & Shakers. More important than being on the list, for me, is the incredible set of other people that are on the list. To be included in any list, anywhere, with:

  • Sarah Houghton-Jan
  • Chad Boeninger
  • Michael Porter
  • Lauren Pressley
  • Pam Sessoms
  • Jaap Van De Geer
  • Geert Van Den Boogaard
  • Erik Boekesteijn
  • Jenica Rogers-Urbanek
  • Dorothea Salo
  • and, of course, Karen Coombs

Wow. I am thrilled and a bit overwhelmed. I’m desperately looking forward to reading up on those people on the list that I don’t know…

I have one bit of a correction: in the article, it says “Their commitment to sharing information about cutting-edge technology led to LITA BIGWIG.” That’s not actually true, unless they left out the word “them” between “led” and “to.” BIGWIG is the original brain-child of Karen Schneider and Clara Ruttenberg. They decided that it was time for LITA to focus on blogs and wikis as a part of the organizational structure back in 2005 or so, and BIGWIG was instantiated under their oversight. It was, however, Karen, Michelle, and myself that moved it into the sort of tech breeding ground that it has become. The next overseers will, hopefully change it as appropriate for the times and needs of the organization.

In any case: I am thrilled, and thanks to anyone and everyone who recommended me for this honor. Now to cross my fingers for that Shovers & Makers award…

Categories
Digital Culture Library Issues Personal

Friendfeed explodes!

There was an explosion of discussion about this topic over on Friendfeed, and I wanted to be able to reference it later. Thought maybe some of the readers would want to chime in as well. You can find it here:

http://friendfeed.com/e/e98c5775-3df3-ee30-1725-33c492cc113a/The-Beginning-of-the-New-Normal-David-Lee/

Categories
Personal

Techsource post – Netbooks!

While I have been far too quiet here on PatRec, I have been writing bits and pieces elsewhere. I just had a post go up over on ALA TechSource on Netbooks. Go take a look!

I’m also trying to catch up from being behind on my upcoming book on Mobile Technology and Libraries. So if PatRec remains a little quiet for the next couple of months, well…that’s why. đŸ™‚

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Personal

Vaccination followup

Just a quick note to follow up on my previous post about Pseudoscience and vaccines. While I’m certainly not going to suggest that we take our medical advice from our legal system, it looks like the latter at least got the former right this time.

Special court rejects autism-vaccine theory

The three federal judges who convincingly rejected the theory that vaccines cause autism delivered a devastating blow to crank science today. The battle will go on in the blogs and in the courts. But the most important arena has always been the space between the ears of parents who are deciding whether it’s safe to vaccinate their kids. This decision could do a heap of good by stemming the tide of vaccine-shunning that has led to outbreaks of preventable disease.
…

“Petitioners’ theories of causation were speculative and unpersuasive,” wrote Special Master Denise Vowell in the case of Colten Snyder v. HHS. “To conclude that Colten’s condition was the result of his MMR vaccine, an objective observer would have to emulate Lewis Carroll’s White Queen and be able to believe six impossible (or at least highly improbable) things before breakfast.”

While I don’t think for a moment that this will stop the crank beliefs revolving around autism and vaccinations (science is still not our friend in the US; witness that in a recent poll only 4 in 10 American’s say that they believe in the Theory of Evolution, a fact that makes me want to claw my own eyes out) it does make me happy that the legal system won’t be participating in further arguments around this (non-)controversy.