InfoNation

Oh well ... whatever ... never mind

2008-02-08T18:31:00.000-08:00

Oh well, whatever ... never mind ....

A co-worker emailed this to me today. I had written it to her in 1994 when she was mourning the death of Kurt Cobain:

Date: Wednesday, 17 August 1994 1:41pm ET

To: DEBORAH
From: GOULDIE
Subject: Nothing Generation

Deborah

As a fellow member of the "Nothing Generation" I feel that it is my duty to bring you back to the fold, as you have obvioulsy gone astray. There you are, mourning a Generation X pop icon; cluttering your office with political propoganda; wearing black - you're not behaving at all like an individual born somewhere between 1960 - 1966. What do you think you were? Born in the 70's?

Let me remind you of the story of our generation. Nothing ever happened to us. We've done nothing. We felt nothing. We are nothing. The baby boomers had Ed Sullivan, Generation X has MTV, we had Gilligan's Island.

The baby boomers had the rock revolution, Generation X has Alternative, we listen to an overweight, balding former high school football player from Yukon, Ok.

The baby boomers had Vietnam, Generation X has drive by shootings, we had a series of covert operations in Central America that never made the front pages.

The Baby Boomers saw their Hero President's young life snuffed out in a still controversial conspiracy involing communism, the mafia and the CIA. Generation X is watching as their president is paralized by babbling bimbos. Our President took a shot to the ribs because some guy watched too muchtelevision and lost a grip on reality.

Do you see a pattern here? Pretty much nothing happened from 1970 - 1990. During our formative years the world was in a deep hibernation and our attitude towards life should be lethargic at best.

So get those radical posters off your office wall and put up some nice Southwestern art (maybe a coyote howling at the moon with a cactus in the background). Get rid of those crazy CD's you listen to and buy some Garth Brooks or Billy Joel cassettes.

And for crying out loud do away with that Amnesty International paraphernalia and get yourself a nice "Hugs - Not Drugs" bumper sticker.Honestly, you're embarassing the rest of us.

We have a non-image to protect.

Respectfully,Gouldie

Another hole in the Crosstown ...

2007-11-29T18:29:00.000-08:00

... reduced the westbound side to one lane for about eight hours. Everyone at work was planning alternate routes to get home. As soon as I heard about it I PURLd the ODOT announcement and updated my wiki in less than five minutes. Things are really zipping now ... If I had more time, I could get really addicted to this wiki stuff.

I put an image on my Wiki site!

2007-11-27T22:52:00.000-08:00

I know, I know, big deal, right? Well, it was to me. After finally getting permisson to use the image it took me the better part of the evening to learn how to associate the correct "copyright tags" so that it wouldn't get auto-deleted. Then I had to learn how to embed it.

... and now it's 40 minutes past my bed time.

Oh yeah - if you google Oklahoma City Crosstown - I'm the first hit. I've never been a first hit before. I'm not even the first hit when you Google my name - you don't get anything about me until you are way in to Goooooogle. However, interestingly enough my name twin is big in Knowledge Management in the U.K. Perhaps I can cash in on the name recognition later.

Moderating Messiness

2007-11-27T18:05:00.000-08:00

Somwhere between Weinberger's wonderful world of messy miscellany and Ronni Eisenberg's world of organization and order comes the place where the rest of us live.

In Everything Is Miscellaneous, which I have discussed in other posts in this blog, Weinberger extolls the value of the "third order of order", that digital level of order which transcends the limitations of physical organization and allows access to information from unlimited points of entry. As a case in point Weinberger cites an on-line chat he had with Wikipedia's chief technical officer Brion Vibber. Weinberger asked Vibber where the text information for the Wikipedia article on elephants is stored. "god only knows. On the disc somewheres (sic)" replied Vibber.

Weinberger has relaxed me a little. For instance, it no longer stresses me that a particular image in my RoboHelp Web Help Project is named "image7.gif" instead of "Ernd_Incm.gif". Seriously. I am fine (now) with "image7.gif". I wasn't fine with it six months ago, but Weinberger has shown me the light. However, the "god only knows. The on the disc somewhere" level of miscellaneous that works for Vibber and Wikipedia still doesn't quite cut it for me. I will still sort my files into appropriately named folders, and if I am including a new file or image I will give it a meaningful name. The difference now, though, is that I don't get stressed when one of my GenX staffers names the file "image7.gif" instead of "Ernd_Incm.gif".

Blogging from Beyond

2007-11-19T13:33:00.000-08:00

I recently read, for the first time, All Quiet On The Western Front. The most astounding thing about this nearly century old story of a young soldier, is that it could be a contemporary story of a young soldier. The loss of innocence, the disillusionment, the mental health problems, the poor medical treatment for veterans, all of these are issues out of today’s headlines.

Blogger Bill Lamin is putting a contemporary spin on a very personal story from World War I. Lamin is posting the World War I letters of his grandfather, 90 years to the day after they were written. On the days where there is no letter he posts a brief overview of the activities of his grandfather’s company on that day. Lamin also incorporates Wikipedia links to give added value to some of the references in the letters. As Lamin’s father was born prior to the war, the blog reader doesn’t know the fate of the young soldier and must follow the blog to learn whether or not he returns home. Lamin’s blog offers a fresh perspective to The Great War.

Other bloggers like J.D. Abolins, The BBC, Matt Dillon (no, not that Matt Dillon, this Matt Dillon), Paul Deegin, and Clark Boyd are abuzz with comments on Lamin's unique method of brining hisory alive.

In case you are wondering, as of November 19, 1917 Harry was still alive. You'll have to follow the blog yourself to see what happens to him.

There's no such thing as a free PURL

2007-11-13T18:21:00.000-08:00

Through the process of developing a Wikipedia article I ventured in to the world of PURLs. What most surprised me about the process of establishing PURLs was not that it was a relatively simple process, which it was, but that OCLC would go through such lengths for the sole purpose of making information more accessible.

Perhaps my experience with highly paid government consultants has jaded me. I
I get suspicious when I find something for nothing, because seldom do you get something for nothing. Certainly not on the corporate level at any rate. Jimmy Wales might provide Wikipedia for free, but I would imagine that the success of Wikipedia commands him an impressive speaker's rate. So, in the end, he profits from a non-profit organization.

Perhaps the same is true of OCLC. As OCLC creates a bigger footprint on the information landscape and is insinuates itself in to more and more aspects of information organization and retrieval its management gains more authority, which in the end will translate to personal profit.

Maybe it's just the Machiavellian in me, but I trust an institution more when I know what motivates it.

House Bill 1804 and Oklahoma Libraries

2007-11-06T06:39:00.000-08:00

Oklahoma made national headlines last week with the enactment of what civil rights leaders are calling some of “the most restrictive” legislation in the country regarding immigration and illegal aliens. The legislation in question is Oklahoma House Bill 1804, which not only establishes stiff penalties for the employers of undocumented immigrants, but also for those who “transport, move, or attempt to transport in the State of Oklahoma any alien knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that the alien has come to, entered, or remained in the United States in violation of law”.

The legislation doesn’t directly address what penalties could be assessed librarians who assist illegal immigrants, however the legislation does indicate that identification cards may be created by (among others), “Businesses, companies, corporations and service organizations for customer identification which is designed to identify the bearer as a customer or member” and limits such identification card distribution “only to United States citizens, nationals and legal permanent resident aliens.”

There are exemptions to these legislations, the first of which makes absolutley no sense to me. The exemptions listed in the legislation are when the services provided are:

1. For any purpose for which lawful presence in the United States is not restricted by law, ordinance, or regulation;

2. For assistance for health care items and services that are necessary for the treatment of an emergency medical condition, as defined in 42 U.S.C., Section 1396b(v)(3), of the alien involved and are not related to an organ transplant procedure;

3. For short-term, noncash, in-kind emergency disaster relief;

4. For public health assistance for immunizations with respect to diseases and for testing and treatment of symptoms of communicable diseases whether or not such symptoms are caused by a communicable disease; or

5. For programs, services, or assistance such as soup kitchens, crisis counseling and intervention, and short-term shelter specified by the United States Attorney General, in the sole and unreviewable discretion of the United States Attorney General after consultation with appropriate federal agencies and departments ....

The legislation goes on to define specific types of services provided by the U.S. Attorney General which would be exempted. I'm assuming all references to the U.S. Attorney General are specific to the witness protection plan, but I didn't investigate that much further.

So what does this mean to your average circulation desk clerk? Are library cards, "designed to identify the bearer as a customer or member?" If so, must libraries now verify the citizenship status of potential patrons?

I googled "Oklahoma" and "Library" and "1804", but didn't find much information specific to libraries.

I also checked the ODL website. The June 17 board meeting minutes indicated that a report would be given "at the next board meeting" of how HB1804 might impact libraries, however, the minutes for the August 24 board meeting have not yet been published.

What's the buzz on this?

Permanent Record

2007-10-31T17:51:00.000-07:00

In his book Everything is Miscellaneous David Weinberger discusses the collaborative philosophy of Web 2.0. "Paper drives thoughts into our heads," writes Weinberger, "The Web releases thoughts before they're ready so we can work on them together." Certainly there is much to be said about collaborative idea building, and the web provides the ideal environment for collaboration. The problem, however, with the web is that those initial embryonic thoughts are so permanent. Even thoughts published in this somewhat anonymous blog, created as a class requirement, can have consequences that reach further than one might think. Already we have been admonished to be cautious lest our current or future employers happen across it, and at least one class member mentioned that a prospective employer perused her blog before her job interview.

While the world of Web 2.0 can make an instant celebrity of a groovy dancing girl, it can also allow what could have been a momentary embarrassment to haunt you for years. Pop culture loves those "before they were stars" videos that feature younger, gawkier versions of celebrities. To us it's a trade off. Part of the price they pay for their current fame and fortune is that we get to laugh at their embarrassing moments. But what about the rest of us normal folk? What's the upside to having one of our less than stellar moments go viral?

I'm not just talking about the videos you can find on YouTube by searching for the terms "stupid" and "drunk", I'm also referring to developing moralities, ethics, and principles. Frankly, I'm glad there is no YouTube video of my eighth grade self responding to a classmate's invitation to smoke pot with, "No thank you Tommy, I get high on Jesus." My adult self now recognizes that my response was just a tad on the sanctimonious side. I'm not totally embarrassed by what I said. I am, however, glad that I get to control who hears the story and in what context. I have a great deal of sympathy for those, especially those kids, who leave a permanent digital record of their developing sensibilities.

I wonder if this sort of "permanent record" will make the iGeneration more tolerant of youthful indiscretions and more accepting of a individual's personal growth? When nearly everyone has some sort of skeleton in the cyber-closet will society no longer ransom our pride with relics we'd rather forget?

Google Desktop - it's not tagging, but ...

2007-10-24T13:08:00.000-07:00

As a follow up to my last post I want to continue my discussion on how to find the needle of information I need in the haystack of files and folders I have at my fingertips. After my last post I loaded Google Desktop to see if it help in my ceaseless quest for "that email I sent some time last month ... or was it month before last?"

My cross-filing method finally caught up with me this week when I was *shudder* unable to create a new Outlook folder. A call to the Help Desk brought back the answer I most feared, "What the heck? You have totally exceeded your storage limit for Outlook. You need to delete some emails!"

And so I did. Nearly 25,000 emails are gone forever. Down the tubes. Never to be seen again. Except that they were all in my "sent" folder and whenever I send an email I think I might need later I always send a copy to myself and file it. Of course, as I mentioned in my last post, then I have to remember exactly where I filed it.

I'm not crazy about the search feature in Outlook. It's very time consuming. Which brings us to today's topic: Google Desktop.

One of the immediate advantages to Google Desktop is the indexing, which the software does when you load it. Google Desktop indexes during computer idle time, so I had to leave my PC on overnight to give it a change to index everything.

I'm pretty pleased with the results. It searches my email much faster than Outlook ever did. The advance search feature of Google Desktop pretty much mimic the advanced features of an Outlook search. There are some limitations. For example, with Outlook search you can search emails where "I am the only person in the 'to' line"; whereas with Google Desktop you can indicate "from" and "to" in your email search, but you can't limit the "to" line to yourself. The payoff in the search returns, however, is well worth it. Once Google Desktop has finished indexing the search returns for all email are almost instantaneous. It's amazing!

Google Desktop also has advantages over the standard Windows Explorer search feature. Again, once you have selected the folders you want indexed and have given Google Desktop time to index them (leaving the PC on overnight should do the trick) the results are very quick. Much like Windows Explorer Search, adding additional network drives to your list of search locations is laborious. However, with Google Desktop this only has to be done once. Again, once Google Desktop indexes those drives the search results are much faster than anything Windows Explorer can deliver. An additional advantage to Google Desktop is the preview of the results. Windows Explorer Search doesn't offer a preview feature. With Windows Explorer search you either have to know by the file name that the document contains the information for which you are searching, or you have to open the document. Google Desktop returns a nice preview of the document so you can usually tell at a glance if it's the right one.

All in all, I am sold on Google Desktop and will probably use it in lieu of the search features offered through Outlook or Explorer.

Tag 'em, Danno.

2007-10-18T18:06:00.000-07:00

What happened on Tuesday of this week is the sort of thing that happens too often. My boss wanders in to my office and says, "Can you re-send me a copy of that email about the SPRS testing? I can't find my copy and I need to forward it to Mary."

Okay, sure. I check the SPRS folder in my Outlook. It's not there. Then I check the SPRS Testing folder. Not there either. Dang it! I forgot to file the email. I go to my "sent" folder and sort by recipient, then scroll down to my boss's name. Of course, when you sort by "recipient" in Outlook it lists the emails in alphabetical order by the recipient list. So I have to remember exactly who was on the recipient list, and in what order. I don't remember that. I try sorting by "date sent", but what day did I send that email? Last Tuesday? Or was it Wednesday? It wasn't as long ago as Monday, was it? I send between 150-200 emails a day. This one is lost in the pile.

Please Mr. Gates, can we please add a tagging option to Microsoft Outlook? It would make my life so much easier! As things stand right now I am at the mercy of my own filing system. And how do I file an email that references the Citizenship Verification project, which is part of the Deficit Reduction Act, but instead of referencing the original Service Change Request (SCR-2476) is now referencing a subsequent problem report (Remedy Problem Report 0001 - 11023)? What I end up doing is cross filing the email in about four different folders: Citizenship, SCR-2476, DRA, and Remedy 001-11023. Then, when I need to reference the email 08 months from now I have at least some chance of finding it.

Mr. Gates, if I could please tag a single email with all four of these tags it would save so much time, so much space.

Please, Mr. Gates? Please?

Discard and Dat Card

2007-10-03T20:59:00.000-07:00

In 1994 Nicholson Baker lamented what was lost when tangible library catalogue cards were discarded as libraries made the transition from physical card catalogues to digital databases. Reading an article about discarded catalogue cards (discards) brought back fond memories of my childhood, throughout which discards played a constant role.

My father was a medical librarian for the Federal Aviation Administration. On a regular basis he brought home boxes of "discards". Some of them were Library of Congress catalog cards for books that never made their way in to his library. Others from books that had been removed from the stacks. I have no memories of my father in which he didn't have a small stack of "discards" in the inside pocket of his suit jacket, or in his breast pocket, or glove box.

Stacks of discards were (and still are) kept by the phone for messages. The lazy days of my adolescent summers began with me reading a list of chores, written on the back of a discard and left on the kitchen counter. It was on the back of a discard that my father drew a map to my grandfather's house in East Texas for the first time my brothers and I drove without the parents. Notes, written on the back of discards would be tucked under the windshield of my car outside the book store where I worked part time. They gave the nervous instructions of a father for his only daughter, "Drive home safely. Lock your doors. Don't talk to any boys."

For the better part of 40 years discards have been doled out to fidgety children and grandchildren during lengthy church services. They served as a canvas for art, or a game board for tic-tac-toe.

My mother's chicken enchilada recipe is on the back of a discard, as were the initial blueprints to the laundry room we added to my house a few years ago.

What Baker laments in his essay is the loss of the human element of physical catalog cards, "What of the hand written ones?" he asks. But from my perspective, discards didn't represent something that was lost. Discarding gave them the opportunity for new life. After serving their purpose in the library they had a second chance, and when they emerged from my father's pocket they were resurrected.

Till Organization Styles Do Us Part

2007-09-22T08:21:00.000-07:00

Before you enter a committed relationship, before you take that ultimate plunge and clear out a dresser drawer for your significant other's personal effects, before you take them to meet the extended family over Thanksgiving weekend; there is one crucial piece of information you must obtain.

How does your beloved organize CDs? By musical style? Alphabetically by artists? By year of publication? Perhaps they don't follow any sort of traditional method. Perhaps they organize music based on the year they acquired it. If they didn't become a Bob Marley fan until 2003 then Legend may be found along side Norah Jones.

I can't stress enough the importance of this information. If your styles of music organization are vastly different then you may well spend the best years of your life searching for a Lyle Lovett recording.

This is real life, people. Marriage (or its equivalent partnering) is tough enough. If music is an important part of your life, you don't want to make a decision that's going to create hardship for years to come.

Probably the best thing to do is to start clean with all digital files, which allow for the creation of individual libraries. Digital files are sort of like friends. Those that were acquired during the single years can be assimilated in to the relationship. CDs and tapes, like old lovers, are going to cause nothing but trouble. Cut your losses and move on.

Pick a little, talk a little, pick a little talk a little ...

2007-09-17T19:36:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'll be honest. I have no idea what to say in this blog. And when I say "say", I mean "write". Frankly, talking exhausts me. I realize that I may come across as something of a technophobe. Second Life doesn't appeal to me, nor do I hold too fast to the concept of "cyber relationships". Now we come to "talky blogs" (as Ross the Intern calls them). I'm not big on noise. I am the person who turns down the volume and uses the closed caption on the television. I will take an email over a phone call any time.

But at the same time I love how sound can enhance an information experience. I love National Public Radio. In my opinion This American Life is just about the best way a person can spend an hour of her life. Sound is what completes the This American Life experience. Sure, you could read a transcript, but without the music and the voices it loses something.

Many (many, many) years ago I had a classic VCR with a sound edit feature. After completing my undergrad work (which I often described as four years of summer camp) my clique disintegrated. Missing them, missing college, I spent a few days with a stack of video tapes of plays; Broadcast News Class report; and goof off tapes made with a hand held cam corder. The result was a "mash up" of clips from four years of college set to Carol King singing "So Far Away".

What took me the better part of a weekend could be accomplished now in a couple of hours with a PC and the end result wouldn't be nearly as fuzzy. The results might have even survived the test of time. Unlike the three copies of the video I made, all of which eventually succumbed to wear.

There is an aspect to Web 2.0 humanity that I can't deny. Web 2.0 allows us to celebrate the ones we love, and to share them with the world. Wether it's a parent sharing a child's courageous battle with cancer, or a young person coming to term with the suicide of a friend, or a teenager speaking out against a war, Web 2.0 allows the average user to tell their story.

Meet the new humanism, same as the old humanism

2007-09-11T19:02:00.001-07:00

"The time has come for widespread recognition of the radical changes in religious beliefs throughout the modern world. The time is past for mere revision of traditional attitudes. Science and economic change have disrupted the old beliefs. Religions the world over are under the necessity of coming to terms with new conditions created by a vastly increased knowledge and experience."

While the above statement sounds as though it may have been written by a modern philosopher such as Michael Heim, who in his book Electric Language: A Philosophical Study of Word Processing considers how word processing has changed, or could possibly change, how we think and approach language. The above statement, however, was not offered by a cyber-guru contemplating the New Second-World Order in a society where socialization can occur with a self who is represented rather than present. The above statement is the Humanist Manifesto, written by Raymond Bragg in 1933.

Nearly 75 years ago "vastly increased knowledge and experience" was challenging traditional Western views of self and our place in the Universe. Humanism rejected duality of man as flesh vs. spirit (or mind vs. body) and instead contemplated man as an active player in all aspects of the Universe.

Heim does consider humanity's "coming to terms with the new conditions" and raises the question, "Will we in our lifetimes see the Internet blossom with a new humanism?" Does this new humanism go a step further than the old humanism by rejecting the duality of one's represented self and one's present self. Is the person stretched out in bed, propped up on pillows illuminated only by the light of a video screen one in the same with the avatar on the screen?

Does the on line experience allow the user to transcend her physical self and literally become the on line representation? The emotions are real. The sensations are real. When the avatar is in danger the user experiences a quickening of the pulse, rapid breathing, even exhaustion after a particularly exhilarating experience. Isn't that real? Ask any person who has been involved in a chat room flame war if the feelings of betrayal, hurt, and anger were any less real than they would have been had the exchange occurred in the office break room.

But from my perspective, Cyber-life isn't real life. It is both easier and more difficult. I can disconnect, literally and simply from an unpleasant cyber experience. At the same time, without the context of body language, facial expressions, and inflection, an exchange in cyber-space can be more precarious and take more effort.

In the end though, to me real life and real relationships, are based on shared experience. Actual, physical, experiences. True relationships blossom not from the philosophical chats in cyber-space, but bad service at the Village Inn at 2:30 on a Saturday morning. Service so bad that it's still fodder for inside jokes a decade later. No matter how real or meaningful a relationship in cyberspace, it is much more meaningful when your real self shows up on a friend's front porch asking for a place to stay for a few weeks, than it is for your avatar to cyber-crash at a Second Life pad.

Wiki Happens

2007-09-07T01:57:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the democracy of the Internet; a society by the user, for the user and of the user. In the culture of Web 2.0 it is the user who weilds the final authority on truth. In the culture of Web 2.0 Stephen Colbert can launch a user revolution to alter the population of elephants, and other users can revolt against the revolt to correct the campaign of dis-information.

The success of Web 2.0 indicates that the people have spoken and what the people said is that they know what's best for the people.

The challenge for the knowledge management community, particularly in business and industry, is to determine how to modify traditional knowledge management tools to benefit from user authority.

As a knowledge manager who has spent considerable effort in the last few years developing a traditional on-line help file for a few thousand users of social service case management software products, I must now consider ways in which to "wikify" this same information. The potential for the greater good that will come as a result of allowing these users to share information and best practices with one another is encouraging. Caution, however, must be exercised. I don't want to make the same mistake as the Los Angeles Times.

Information Week suggests a more targeted approach. Perhaps, instead of developing a wiki to replace the entire help file, I should begin by developing project specific wikis. The new federal requirement that all Medicaid applicants verify their citizenship status created significant changes in Medicaid policy and case management procedures. As with any new policy refinements and modifications to procedures are being made on a weekly (if not daily) basis. A wiki focusing 'Medicaid Citizenship Verifications' could include updates on the policy and procedural changes, providing eligibility workers with a single source for information.

The Information Week article cautions that while the content of a wiki is user controlled, the structure of the wiki requires the attention of a staff member.

It's worth considering.

It's everywhere!

2007-08-28T19:23:00.001-07:00

In his First Monday article reporting on his experiences as an embedded journalist in Second Life Wagner James Au says of Second Life, "I’ve come to believe that it’s an inadvertent advance report on the future of the Internet, and how we’ll interact in it in decades to come". This says to me that perhaps I ought to take this thing a little more seriously.

Then, in a cruel twist of fate, one of my staff members (who constantly advocates for cyber-commuting) emailed me today with a link to an ABC news story on the subject. The news story mentions that the marketing firm Crayon rarely meet in the physical world, "but their online alter egos in the virtual world gather once a week". In her email my staff member said, "I think this might be like that Second Life game."

And to think that just seven days ago I'd never even heard of Second Life.

I'm going to rant just for a second about cyber-commuting and State Government. I work for the great state of Oklahoma. Part of being a state employee is keeping up appearances. After the Oklahoma State Department of Health ghost employee scandal, I don't hold out much hope for wide-spread cyber-commuting any time soon. The tax payers want confidence that their money is being well spent. In the future the next generation of tax payers will want to know why their tax dollars are being wasted on the maintenance of state buildings when all of these workers could be logging in from home. But until that cry comes from the taxpayers, or at least until we have a tax base that acknowledges the fiscal benefits of working from home, our butts better be in those tax payer funded office chairs.

Term Of The Day

2007-08-26T15:52:00.000-07:00

A couple of things....

First, to begin, I want to discuss further my visit to Second Life. As was noted in the comments to that post, the Second Life visit was not a course requirement, but rather a suggestion. I have to admit I didn't find Second Life personally appealing. I stopped playing video games when I first saw Nintendo 64 with its "virtual cameras". I preferred the omniscient POV where I was the Almighty looking down from above, controlling Link in his efforts to save the princess. When I actually became Link, and had to worry about looking over my shoulder, and could only see what was in my line of vision, I stopped playing.

But getting back to Second Life, while I won't be starting a Second Life of my own, I did encounter some interesting information, new to me, on my way to Orientation Island. In doing a little on-line research before entering SL I frequently encountered the term Web 2.0. This is a term I'd not previously encountered. I found that the term Web 2.0 encompasses a couple of major aspects of web services. Web hosting software is one major component of Web 2.0. Rather than downloading software to an individual pc, the trend is for software to be hosted on web, and "leased" by the user. This is natural extension of the 'client server' based software movement of the mid to late 90's.

The other aspect of Web 2.0 is the "user owner" aspect of the web. User based taxonomies, tags, wikis, blogs, Urban Dictionary, all of these are examples of how the web user, rather than the web developer, is defining the web experience.

Neither of these concepts were new to me. I'd just not heard them wrapped in the term "Web 2.0". It's nice to know the buzz words. Using the latest terms gives an air of authority.

Call me old fashioned ...

2007-08-22T20:55:00.000-07:00

... I went to Second Life, chose my Avatar, toured Orientation Island, learned to drive, learned to fly. Then my laptop froze and I had to unplug and eject the battery to get out of it.

I'm going to Pogo now - to play Canasta.

I can't find "Orientation Island" on Google Earth

2007-08-22T19:59:00.000-07:00

This is a direct quote from my instructor's suggestions for this week's exercise: "What I'd suggest you try this week for your fun challenge is Second Life, if you haven't been there. My official suggestion is to stay on Orientation Island, since you can't be "bothered" there (unlike other places, where I'm *not* suggesting you go for this class.... some of you will know what I mean. There are a lot of other places to explore there, which *do* relate to this course: interested people should contact me about that.)"

Individually I understand each word of these instructions, but collectively they make no sense. It's like when I visit with my "financial planner" (don't ask why a mid-level bureaucrat has her own financial planner - it's a long story) and she asks me if I want to continue to focus on mid-cap or consider diversification with some IPOs and or foreign exchange derivatives.

Is "Second Life" anything like being born again? Because I think I covered that at church camp in the seventh grade. Although, if I believe what they told me back then I have done some serious backsliding and should seriously consider a return visit or my "Second Life" will be a warm one.

And what about "Orientation Island". Do I have to eat weeds and bugs on this island? If so, is there any chance I could get voted off the island and return to "Bureaucratic Bog". It's boring there, but we have vending machines.

For the Web Is Hollow, And I Have Touched The Server

2007-08-21T20:12:00.000-07:00

Star Trek fans will recognize the title of this maiden post as a play on a Star Trek: The Original Series episode, "For The World Is Hollow, and I Have Touched The Sky". At the time of the original Trek series, around 1969, there were scientific discoveries and advances lurking around every corner. Surely space travel would bring us face to face with interstellar life forms, thus causing us to question all of our fundamental beliefs. Surely science would cure us of all disease and present us with the dilemma of how to fill 120 years of living with purpose. Science would change everything. The original Trek series struggled with these ethical dilemmas on a weekly basis and this struggle was reflected in episode titles laced with anguish: "Who Mourns For Adonis", "The Immunity Syndrome", "Is There No Truth In Beauty".

Twenty five years later, when Star Trek: Voyager premiered, science was taken for granted. In Voyager science no longer posted ethical dilemmas and space exploration had evolved from a mystical experience to a political one. Episode titles were mundane: "The Cloud", "The Swarm", "The Thaw".

The Internet, in its early days, was viewed in much the same way that the writers of ST:TOS viewed science. The Internet had the potential to change everything. The Internet was the uber-tool that would revolutionize information and level the playing field, making most any information accessible to anyone.

Now, about 25 years in to the Internet our journey has ceased to become one of discovery and wonder and has become one of politics.

I created this blog as a requirement for a graduate course: Design and Implementation of Web Based Information Services. I am taking two courses this semester. The other course is Government Publications. Last night in the GovPub class my instructor lamented the movement in government to publish documents digitally as opposed to hard copy. She stated that by moving from paper to electronic documents that we are "losing part of our cultural heritage" (or words to that effect). Meanwhile, this class will focus on emerging web technologies as intellectual tools and how they can be applied to a variety of information environments.

It should be interesting to contrast the two classes. One in which the instructor will extol the virtues of paper documents, and lament their loss; the other in which class members will prepare themselves to become active participants in the 'electronification' of information.