Citegeist

I really love the new PDF viewer in Gmail.  It allows me to open a PDF attachment and read it in my browser without having to save it to my computer first.  What I found annoying is that there is no “Save in my Google Docs” button in the viewer, even though the bright little logo exclaims that the online view is brought to me by Google Docs.  Phooey.  Here’s a workaround:

1. Open the email with the desired attachment.
2. Copy the link next to the attachment icon labelled “View.” (files <2MB will work).
3. Over in Google Docs, click Upload.
4. In the “Or enter the URL of a file on the web” box, paste in the link that you copied.
5. Click upload.
6. Google Docs will think for a minute, then tell you that it failed.
7. Reload your Google Docs homepage, and as long as the file wasn’t too large, it will appear there.  MUAH HAH HAH!
8. (Hint: in the Google Docs file list, if your document’s icon is not the PDF icon, and if Google Docs tells you that the document is not available offline, the upload did not work.)

This only seems to work for PDFs that are under 2MB.  Files that are over 2MB will stay stuck at the “We are converting your file for use with Google Docs” page.  This doesn’t work for PPT or PPTX attachments of any size, or for files not supported by Google Docs, such as video or images.  YMMV, certainly.

“Where the rubber meets the road… applying what I learned at Computers in Libraries 2009”

Have you ever cleaned papers off your desk, only to find lurking at the very bottom that list of nifty ideas from that awesome conference you attended months ago? It’s easy enough to report what was seen and heard at a conference; it’s more difficult to apply that knowledge and demonstrate its application. Life and work inertia typically get in the way, even at institutions that welcome new ideas. The Computers in Libraries 2009 conference was a month ago. Have I applied what I learned there? The answer, not surprisingly, is “yes and no.” Here is a brief summary of the takeaways from my favorite session at this year’s CIL—and what I have (or haven’t!) done with them.

Read the entire post.

I recently started using the gmail interface for my work email.  Since it’s possible by default to run only one instance of Firefox on a Mac at a time, this left me unable to keep an eye on the gmail account that I use for professional development.  Doing this is easy enough in Windows using icons that launch different Firefox profiles, but the Mac solutions I found only taught me to create differing profiles, not how to launch them simultaneously. This post details how to create two or more Firefox profiles AND use them at the same time.  Each profile maintains different bookmarks, extensions and saved tabs.

Step 1: Create your second Firefox profile

In Terminal, type this command to bring up the Firefox Profile Manager:

/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin --profilemanager

Firefox Profile Manager

Click the Create Profile… button to do just that.  Be sure to uncheck “Don’t ask at startup.”  This will allow you to use your regular Firefox icon (in your Applications folder) to launch the Profile Manager.

Step 2: Create scripts to launch each profile

Launch the Script Editor and paste this into a new script:

do shell script "/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -P profilename &> /dev/null &”

where profilename is the name of the second profile.

Save this as an Application Bundle in your Applications folder, or wherever you like to store applications.  When you save the bundle, be sure to uncheck the “Startup Screen” box, or the script will ask you what to do when you launch it.

Repeat this step to create an Application Bundle for your default profile, using this string:

do shell script "/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -P default &> /dev/null &"

Step 3 (optional): Assign an icon to your new application bundle

Like many things Mac, changing the icon of any file is easy and intuitive–once you know how it’s done.

1. Find a file or application with the icon you wish to use and press Cmd+I to open its information pane.
2. Click the icon in the top-left corner of the information pane.  It becomes highlighted.  Press Cmd+C to copy the icon to the clipboard.
3. Find your application bundle and press Cmd+I to open its information pane.
4. Click the icon in the top-left corner of the information pane. It becomes highlighted.  Press Cmd+V to paste the icon.
5. Close both information panes.

non-highllighted icon

highlighted icon

Step 4: put your new Firefox icons on your desktop, in your dock, or your favorite place to launch applications.

Extra credit:  Install Quicksilver and launch your custom Firefox icons from the keyboard.

Other tips:

1. I initially used the bitsy Firefox as the icon picture on both profiles.  This quickly became confusing but was easily remedied.
2. Once any Firefox profile is launched, you will not be able to launch another instance unless you have an Application Bundle that launches a different profile.  Be aware that if you launch plain vanilla Firefox you’ll get warned that Firefox is already running.  This makes the two Application Bundles necessary.

The tangled web I wove: This Lifehacker post on the topic is what set me down this path.  Along the way, I finally ran across a MacRumors thread that gets the scripting syntax right.  Now, if only I’d run across Asa Dotzler’s post on this same topic, I could have spent a few hours on Sunday doing something else, but feeling much less accomplished.

Update on an observed quirk: I added icons to my dock to launch my custom Application Bundles, but they behave weirdly.  When they are launched, their respective dock icons do not have the dot next to them, indicating that they are running.  There are, however, two additional Firefox icons at the bottom (dock is at left).  These icons do have the “I’m running” dot.  Huh.

Photo by Michael Porter

Following the “Not-Quite-Summit on the Future of Libraries” event at Darien Library, John Blyberg, Kathryn Greenhill, and I spent a day in John’s office (literally) drawing out the ideas that had sprouted there.  Our intention was to spend a day writing a Thing that expressed our concern and hope for the future of libraries, regardless of library type or community served.  We spent the next week in a three-person unconference, the product of which is now posted to John’s blog.  It was an amazing, enriching, exhausting experience,  forming interstices in our attendance at the Computers in Libraries 2009 conference.

We hope that the statements we’ve crafted on our future spark conversation to move us forward in a positive way.  There is a groundswell of passion and interest that we in our profession must harness, lest we become irrelevant in a rapidly-changing world.  A big thank you from the three of us to all the librarians who have been publicly writing and thinking about the future of libraries. I hope we channeled your thoughts with respect.

My own personal response to what we have written involves the concept of openness.  We already embrace “open source,” “open access,” “open space technology,” the “open library“; the openness I want us to espouse is not only related to libraries and our profession but to all of us as human beings. I believe we are on the cusp of an historic, societal change that libraries can push forward, be a part of, and preserve.

Openness requires us to trust instinctively, and to be open and honest with those around us.  Openness grows trust; trust grows connection; connection enables us to grow as people.  Conversely, hurt and hatred sever connection; lack of connection breeds mistrust; mistrust causes us to close ourselves off from each other. If we are closed, we do not grow.  For librarians to grow, and concomitantly, for our libraries to grow, we must throw the doors open: we can no longer afford to live in silos, whether it’s the silo of our individual or departmental expertise; the silos of data that comprise many library systems; the silo of a single library among institutions with similar missions; or the silo of libraries in the universe of other entities that gather and provide information.

Photo by Cindi Trainor

A quick note on collaboration:  John, Kathryn, and I used email, google chat, meebo, EtherPad, cameras, a whiteboard, flickr, an iPhone, iTalk, and Skype to do this.  Grateful that there were so many tools to get the job done, and grateful to John and Kathryn for their hard work and friendship.

The Darien Statements on the Library and Librarians, at Blyberg.net
On Writing the Darien Statements, by Kathryn Greenhill

John Blyberg writes:

ch-ch-ch-changes by twcollins (CC:by-nc-nd2.0)

At many Library conferences these days, we focus on technology so intensely that often we forget to consider the larger work for which technology is just a tool. And perhaps not the most important tool.

Yet, information technology has proliferated and become “humanized” over the last dozen years to the extent that we are now in the midst of revolutionary change. Some even see that change as a threat to the existence of libraries.

As information professionals, we occupy a significant amount of space at the epicenter of that change–but how are we really doing? Are we helping to direct that change or merely responding to it? Are we leveraging change, or simply managing it? As the world of information production and consumption undergoes a complete transformation, how is our place in society affected and what are our responsibilities? How do we justify our existence?

Please join us on Thursday, March 26th at the Darien Library for a conversation with John Berry (Editor-at-large, Library Journal, New York, NY) and Kathryn Greenhill (Emerging Technologies Specialist, Murdoch University Library, Perth Western Australia) about revolutionary change, youth, service, and civic responsibility, and the future of libraries.

Come prepared to participate in group discussion following both speakers. In fact, come prepared to help sketch out the role librarians should play in defining the future of libraries.

Coffee and bagels will be served at 9:00 and we will begin the program at 9:30. Lunch will also be served and we will go until we’ve exhasted the topic (around 5:00).

Attendance is free, but please sign up using the wiki.

Just when you thought it was safe… it’s election season again!  ALA members should be receiving their ballot packages next week, between March 17 and 19.  If you’re an ALA member, please remember to vote.  If you’re also a LITA member, please read on.

I’d like to offer LITA members my personal endorsement of the following candidates:

• LITA President:  Karen Starr
  From her personal statement: “Creative change comes with long term investment, commitment, and patience. [...] I look forward to the opportunity to work with LITA’s members to collaboratively implement the vision that sustains our country’s 21st century information infrastructure.”
• LITA Director-at-Large:  Aaron Dobbs
  From his personal statement: “In addition to guiding and encouraging improvement of LITA services, LITA Board members should be aware of national and international policy debates affecting libraries, library services and library users. Some relevant policies include: personal data (privacy, protection, aggregation, and use thereof), preservation (physical, electronic, locked, obsolete technologies), orphaned works, and wiretapping.”
• LITA Director-at-Large: Maurice York
  From his personal statement: “Throughout my involvement with LITA, I have been a beneficiary of the openness, spontaneity, and impulse for innovation of the organization and its members. [...] I believe that LITA is positioned to represent the potential of a responsive and flexible professional organization to play an important role in shaping the profession at this critical turning point.”

LITA plays a vital role in my professional development.  It’s the home of such innovative ideas as the BIGWIG Social Software Showcase and the Top Technology Trends panels.  LITA connects me with other professionals in library technology departments and others who are interested in emerging technologies and their role in libraries.  It’s my hope that LITA will continue to lead the way with innovative technology programming, at face-to-face meetings and in the online world; it’s my opinion that the three individuals above are the best for that job.  If you’re a LITA member, please consider giving them your vote.

Thanks.

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

As much as I really adore the Mandingo theme for this blog, I was getting kind of tired of it after a year, so I decided to switch to something else.  After scouting briefly around the WordPress Themes site, I decided to try on:

• Constructor
• Fusion
• Pixeled
• iNove
• Yashfa (runner-up!)
• Atahualpa

Here is the Atahualpa theme with default options set:

Here is the Atahualpa theme after about 30 minutes of tinkering with options:

I am no PHP wizard.  I’m not even a CSS journeywoman.  These changes came with poking, prodding, and experimenting, or what Dorothea Salo calls “beating it with rocks.”  I need to create new images that fit better into the sampling that this theme does, and I probably need to do other stuff, but I like it for tonight.  It’s an excellent theme, worthy of a donation, which I’ll do when I’m a bit more awake.

Also, looks like my meebo widget disappeared after writing this post. foo.

Update: I think that my widget problem was caused by Firefox. A recent upgrade to Firefox has fixed the widget problem elsewhere.  Now: to add it back here.

the instigators

Originally uploaded by cindiann

I have a new post at ALA TechSource about my trip at the end of February to Darien Library:

Drupal is hard. It has its own vocabulary. Its potential is so wide open that it is literally possible to do nearly anything with it, and while this idea is greatly liberating, it is also sort of paralyzing: Where do I start? What modules do I need? What can I DO with this thing?

But the way I see it, the fact that Drupal has a steep learning curve is no excuse. There’s no question that Drupal has a steep learning curve, or that it can be messy and complex to implement, but its potential is too great for libraries to ignore. There is also no question that we can do it.

Read the entire post.

One of the best parts of the recent ALA Midwinter Meeting in Denver was getting to speak on a panel with David Lee King of the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library and Rachel Van Noord of WebJunction.  The program was titled “Thx 4 the txt: Communicating with Users in their Space,” and it was sponsored by OCLC Resource Sharing.  Unfortunately, none of us actually talked about SMS reference with users, a topic which I’m sure that many in the room were interested in.  [For that, see the excellent presentation on SMS reference service by Joe Murphy of Yale University and Ellen Peterson of Maui Community College from Internet Librarian 2008.]

David did a wonderful job showing us how Topeka reaches out to their users and welcomes user content inside and outside the library website, and Rachel gave a great introduction to WebJunction.  Both of them had beautiful slides!  You can see David’s on Slideshare.

My part of the program was an introduction to LibX.  We have just configured this browser extension at MPOW and will be testing it and making it available to users this spring.  My slides show the very basic capabilities of LibX; for a more focussed look, see the presentation by Annette Bailey and Godmar Back at last year’s Access 2008 conference [pptx] [pdf]. Thanks to Kathryn Greenhill, whose own LibX screencast inspired me to just try it.

If you follow me on twitter, you know that I’ve struggled with cell phone handsets over the last year. In December 2007, I bought the LG Voyager from Verizon Wireless because of its 2-megapixel, auto-focus camera, touch screen and flip-open QWERTY keyboard. I loved the Voyager, except for one little feature: occasionally and randomly, it would turn itself off and on again. This usually happened in the middle of a call. Not good. To make what could be a very long story short, I had four Voyager handsets with the same problem before giving up and asking Verizon to send me a different model, the LG EnV-2. Two of the Voyager models I had also had less-than-responsive touch screens (which probably could have been fixed by re-calibrating them, which I didn’t think of until it was too late), and the instant messaging application on the most recent one I had worked very sporadically: contacts were inconsistently marked online and off, messages would not be received or delivered at random. (NB: I still have this problem with the EnV-2; it seems to go away if I turn off “IM forwarding” in the Yahoo IM app.)

With the phones side-by-side, you can immediately see that the EnV-2 (left) is smaller than the Voyager:

The EnV-2 is not only shorter than the Voyager, it weighs less and is thinner enough that I notice the difference when I stuff it in my pocket:

You’ll also notice from the above photo that the Voyager (top) has a third button on the side. The sliding toggle in the middle unlocks the touch screen; it takes the press of a key to unlock the EnV-2. I miss the unlock button occasionally, but honestly, it was mostly a frustration on the Voyager–when trying to lock the phone instead of waiting for the touch screen to time out, I would inevitably hit the camera button (left). So it’s probably not a big deal that it’s gone.  I do find myself locking the EnV-2 by opening and shutting it quickly, instead of waiting for the screen to time out.

I was initially worried that the EnV-2’s smaller internal screen would be frustrating to use after the relatively generous space of the Voyager:

So far, it hasn’t been a problem, though I find myself using the camera less. I’m not sure it’s related to anything other than the fact that it’s been below-freezing out every day but one or two since I got it: many photos I take with my phone are outside. I recently joined the daily-photo site Momentile; I hope this changes how frequently I use the camera.

The biggest difference is the keyboard:

The EnV-2’s smaller form-factor dictates that the keyboard be smaller. The phone feels slightly cramped and less comfortable in my hands than the Voyager did, something I didn’t really realize until I picked up my final Voyager again to return it to Verizon. “Oh, that *is* better,” I remember thinking. Someone with smaller hands than I would probably have trouble hitting individual keys. YMMV. I’m used to the keyboard now, though I haven’t quite committed to muscle memory the shortcuts I need most: Messaging and IM.

I do find myself using the itty-bitty screen on the front more than I used the wonky touch screen. Text messages are short enough, and I get few enough of them at this point that it’s manageable.

To their credit, Verizon’s customer service and technical support folks were stellar each time I talked to them. They always sounded interested in the problems I was having, genuinely sympathetic, and never bored. That’s a pretty amazing thing, considering the fact that I called probably a dozen times over the last 12 months.