freeiPods.com is giving away (you guessed it) free iPods. All you have to do is join, complete and online offer, and refer friends to do the same. So, click on the link above to help me out with my iPod, friend!
free iPod
Want a free iPod?
Tag: Software
speaking of gmail invites…
Do you have a bunch of Gmail invites to give away?
If you have Gmail invites to give away, but all of your friends and interested blog readers already have them, I ran across a website that will help you give them away to those who want a Gmail account. I gave away three of my remaining four, keeping one just in case.
user friendly on gmail invites
Looks like everyone has Gmail invites.
Looks like everyone has Gmail invites. (For the record, I don’t have six… I have four.)
sasser worm
Anna makes a lame joke about Sasser.
Is it just me, or do the descriptions of the symptoms of the Sasser worm sound a lot like what happens after you install Windows as your operating system?
Home users would likely first notice an infection if their computer mysteriously rebooted or their Internet connection slowed dramatically.
php
I’m taking a class next fall on PHP.
The computer science department is offering a new course next fall called Web Programming with PHP. I’m signing up for it (if I can get the necessary over-rides) because I’ve wanted to learn PHP, but I don’t have enough discipline or programming experience to do it on my own from books. I have these ideas of things I want to do to enhance the user interface with our electronic resources, and I think that PHP will be a good first step towards gaining the knowledge I need to do implement those ideas.
linux for non-geeks
A new book published by No Starch Press.
I received an email today from O’Reilly & Assoc. about this book. I’m on their mailing list for book announcements because I want to keep up with what’s new for computer geeks, since I’m the library liaison to the Computer Science department. This title caught my eye. I’m a bit of a computer geek, but I’m not very good at tinkering with programs or the OS, so my laptop has most of the out of the box configuration for the Corel distribution. Unfortunately, that distribution is no longer supported, and as a result, my kernel is very old (in terms of the age of Linux), and I can’t install most new programs developed for Linux. I’ve been toying with downloading some other distribution, but I haven’t found one yet that is non-geek friendly. If this book was written by the author for his mother, then I think it might be useful for me to at least get my feet wet. Maybe someday when my computer geekiness becomes so great that I dream in UNIX code I’ll look back at this entry and chuckle….
RSS application
Art Rhyno has created an RSS feed for his library’s new books list.
I had been attempting to puzzle out some coding to get an RSS feed automatically generated from our new books list, but time and a learning curve have prevented me from getting very far on it. I know what needs to be done, and I’m fairly certain that all I need is a little bit of Perl code. Since I have not really worked with Perl beyond tweaking the little bit I needed to tweak when setting up this blog, it would take me quite a bit of time to learn the language. In any case, it appears that Art Rhyno at the University of Windsor has already created an RSS feed for his library’s new books, and they use Endeavor Voyager, as well. I’m hoping he can help me out with a feed for my library. It would have been cool to do the programming myself, and I expect that even with Art’s help, I’ll still need to tweak it, but on the other hand, I don’t know if I’d ever get something programmed on my own.
Update:
Art responded to my comment with a link to the basic instructions on how to set this up. Cocoon? Modula-2? LISP? Maybe I need to re-think my desires to learn some programming. I suppose it will be good for me in the long run.
feeders
Snappy new term for RSS aggregators.
Karen asks, “How long before major browsers integrate aggregators? (And when are we going to find better names for these tools?)”
1. I wondered if Mozilla might be developing something like this, so I took a look at their website. Turns out that someone has created an RSS reader plugin for Firebird. There are also Aggreg8 and NewsMonster for both Firebird and Mozilla. It looks like there are several other plugins being developed, as well.
2. I offer the term feeders. It’s short, snappy, and to the point. Of course, it will only work if other people use it. If you like the term, I suggest you start referring to your RSS aggregator as a feeder.
digital Christie
80 of Agatha Christie’s books are being released in digital format this year
I just read in the Powell’s newsletter that 80 of Agatha Christie’s books are being released in digital format this year. They will all be available for download in the Palm Reader, Adobe Reader, and Microsoft Reader formats, and the first five are available now for under $5 each (not bad considering paperback prices these days). Here are the titles currently available:
The Mysterious Affair at Styles – haven’t read it yet
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd – read it
The Murder at the Vicarage – read it
The Body in the Library – read it
They Came to Baghdad – haven’t read it yet
avast!
Ahoy, me proud beauty! How many leagues to th’ Skull & Scuppers? I’ve a fierce fire in m’belly t’ swill a pint or two o’ grog. Today is Talk Like a Pirate Day, and I expect to hear some amusing reference desk stories from all of you pirate-talking reference librarians!
Ahoy, me proud beauty! How many leagues to th’ Skull & Scuppers? I’ve a fierce fire in m’belly t’ swill a pint or two o’ grog.
Today is Talk Like a Pirate Day, and I expect to hear some amusing reference desk stories from all of you pirate-talking reference librarians!
