Category

Off the network drive, into the internet and still in the swamp

I sometimes despair. While I think that we slowly make slow progress in terms of doing smarter work, better, I occasionally encounter the heated query from elsewhere that makes me wonder whether those of us who are paid to be thinking about IT actually think. (Given the bizarreness of some of the election charges and [...]

Adding network services without the overhead

Some people’s summer vacations involve lots of doing nothing, preferably in a notably scenic locale. In my family, summer vacation involves lots of hard work at a music camp suitably located in a most scenic locale (in this case, north of Montreal in the Laurentians). I’m the week-long music camp IT guy.

Pimp My Source

We received a survey recently from an educational institution, but under the auspices of IMLS, titled Controlled Online Collections Survey. First I had to figure what they were talking about: “A network accessible collection of digital materials where: access to the collection is controlled, or use of the digitized material is controlled.” Anyone else get [...]

The browser within the browser

This has my vote for the cool thing of the week / month / current phase. The ancient and venerable art of bookshelf browsing happily comes around full circle, after having been knocked off the shelf (so to speak) by the monotonous precision of digital information “management:” “Launched to the public earlier this week, Zoomii [...]

Jeopardy!

AAM Denver’s done and I’m looking forward to a 48-hour nap without the AC running all night. Among various committee and board meetings, I managed to do two presentations. I had the pleasure of presenting a session with two women each with a fantastic sense of humour: Holly Witchey and Diane Andolsek. The session was [...]

The Big One

We’re in the process (as we all should be) of disaster planning. We have two projects, one is Emergency Response – what to do when “The Big One” hits Los Angeles, the other is Business Recovery – how to get back to work and open to the public. Emergency Response is pretty easy. First we [...]

Digital Asset Management Database (DAMD) available through MCN

from Rick Rinehart, Digital Media Director & Adjunct Curator, Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive and the MOAC: Community Toolbox Hello members of the MCN community, I’m proud to announce that, through a partnership between MCN and the MOAC consortium, MCN is now distributing to you,the members, a new free software tool for managing and sharing [...]

Content Management for Good or Evil

Very interesting post (and not only because it quotes Nik) by Michael Edson of the Smithsonian, on his blog “Using Data.” Thought-provoking words indeed, about the potential danger of using data, or rather data managment systems, for the wrong purpose. Seems that almost every digital technology developed to make life more creative, more productive, and [...]

Dear Santa

Dear Santa, As I mentioned when we met last weekend at the Shopping Mall, I have been extraordinarily good this year so here is my Christmas List. I have to say you don’t look anything like Tim Allen, and you really should get a grip on your brother Fred. Anyway here’s my list: An OC-3072 [...]

Information R/evolution

This video was posted on BoingBoing today. For the most part, I tend to agree with BoingBoing’s editors’ opinions about the copywars, accessibility of information, and the importance of Web 2.0 and community engagement, but every so often, IMO, they get a bit strident about the free information age. Case in point is the video [...]