A Bloy and his Blog

I’ve been wanting to replace my old MP3 player for a while now. It’s a few years old, so the features and storage capacity are lacking compared to players on the market now. I decided to give in to my technolust and started shopping around.

Part of me was reluctant to go with an Apple iPod. My old player was from Sansa, and concerns about Apple’s proprietary software bothered me a bit. After reading some online reviews, I decided to try one of the new Sansa models. I was not impressed. The controls seemed clumsy and hard to get used to. I experimented with loading music from my computer onto the player, and that was a clumsy experience as well. So, I returned the Sansa player, and picked up a 4 GB Apple iPod Nano. Wow! What a nice device. Yes that’s right, I am now one of the Pod People.

read the rest of: One of the pod people

Legendary Music! Gripping Terror! Screaming Girls!

A Hard Day’s Night of the Living Dead

• Introducing Google TiSP - a free internet service provider we can all get behind. Not convinced? Make sure you read how it works, and the FAQ.
• Tired of dealing with electronic mail? Gmail Paper is now available. (The folks at Google Labs certainly have been busy lately.)
• From NPR’s Weekend Edition, a New York City councilman has proposed a bill to regulate obnoxious and distracting ringtones.
• President Bush calls up civil war reenactors for duty in Iraq, from the Onion News Network.

My hosting company is upgrading the server this website resides on, so if you notice downtimes or general weirdness for a few hours tonight, that’s why.

I’ve never actually mentioned my hosting company here before, but if you’re looking for good web host, I highly recommend JaguarPC.

Since I’ve been with them (almost five years now) they’ve been expanding their business, and improving their services along with the expansion. That has been especially true over the past year or two. In addition to things like tonight’s server upgrade, a few months ago they upgraded all of their shared hosting customers to their newest, larger hosting plan at no extra charge! So, while still paying the same annual cost for the smaller plan, I got a huge increase in storage capacity, bandwidth limits, etc.

When I have had problems (or even just a question), their online support has been very good. Often responding to my concerns within minutes of submitting a ticket. They also have a good user forum with the company president, and top support people being active contributors.

Need a good web host? Try JaguarPC.

Last night I went to the Neko Case concert at the Barrymore Theatre here in Madison. Her wonderful Fox Confessor Brings The Flood was my favorite album from last year, and I was very excited to see her perform live. I was not disappointed.

Hearing the music and that gorgeous voice resonate through the sold-out theater was an enchanting experience. From the Patsy Cline like crooning of the opening song, “A Widow’s Toast,” to the defiant (and almost shouting) end chorus of “Maybe Sparrow,” Neko’s voice was indeed the star of the show.

read the rest of: Neko Case mesmerizes

Today I returned home from the Computers in Libraries conference (more on that soon). I was away for a week, and what I missed most was my internet connection. I found myself very envious of the librarians who had their own notebook computers, and were taking advantage of the free wi-fi in the conference rooms.

I spend a great deal of my normal day (both working and off days) using a computer. Going without access while seeing others online almost made me feel like a junkie in need of a fix. Waiting in line to use one of the conference’s eight email stations for ten minutes did not cut it. I wanted to check out the cool things the librarians were talking about in their presentations. I wanted to be able to take notes more efficiently. And, I wanted to do some of the normal, daily things I do on the web.

I seriously need a notebook computer.

Earlier this week I attended this year’s Computers in Libraries conference. While I wasn’t all that enamored with the hotel location, the conference itself was excellent. I got excited about, and learned a LOT of interesting things. Below are a few highlights.

The folks at the South Carolina State Library recently redesigned their site using Joomla, the open source content management system. This was a very inspirational session for me, as I’m looking at adding a CMS to my library’s website. More info is available at Joomla in Libraries.

Another intriguing session was Derick Willis’ talk entitled Creating Browsable Content with Django. Django is another open source CMS I want to learn more about.

read the rest of: Computers in Libraries 2007

While I was in Washington DC for the Computers in Libraries conference, I took a couple vacation days to see some of the sights.

Unfortunately, the cherry blossoms peaked about a week before I was there.

read the rest of: Photos from Washington DC

read the rest of: Arlington National Cemetery

I had never been to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial before.

read the rest of: FDR Memorial