ex libris » tech

don’t be evil

Mike — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 14:54:33 +0000

This video of Google CEO Eric Schmidt as a creepy ice cream vendor is kind of funny.

Ryan Singer’s counterpoint is also worth reading.

flag module

Mike — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 16:12:54 +0000

I found John Wohlers’ presentation on drupal’s flag module from the recent Chicagoland Library Drupal Group to be quite interesting (skip to 1:20:50 in the stream for that presentation). This module looks like a promising way to allow users to bookmark/favourite content on our new site as well as to flag inappropriate content. I also really like Waubonsee’s approach to an A-Z list of databases where entries are initially collapsed to save space. I think we’ll steal this!

Via Tame The Web

the website is down

Mike — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 15:31:12 +0000

This site is hilarious. If you enjoy the first episode below, there are three more waiting there for you. Thanks to Drew for the tip.

lastpass

Mike — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 15:23:08 +0000

I previously wrote about backing up stored passwords in firefox and there was some discussion about some more robust password solutions. I still have not tried any password utilities but if I was going to, I would probably give LastPass a shake first. It was covered on a recent Security Now podcast and Steve gave it a clean bill of health. It looks really slick, is available for all platforms including mobile and is free. There is a dollar a month premium version but I think you only need that for the mobile apps.

drupal 7

Mike — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 20:03:03 +0000

I sat in on this webinar last week. Ostensibly about all of the contrib modules which have been brought into core for d7, that was really only a small part of what was covered. They also talked about Drupal Gardens. Wanna play around with d7 now? Drupal Gardens is the easiest way and it’s free…

mockingbird

Mike — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 15:35:54 +0000

This looks like a pretty cool tool for doing wireframes online. Currently in free beta but eventually presumably not free…

google app inventor

Mike — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 15:00:26 +0000

Very cool idea from google, sounds sort of like Pipes for smartphones.

beer delivering robot

Mike — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:43:37 +0000

Ah, beer + tech = the best! I could really go for one of these…

Via cnet

realtime patron authentication

Mike — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 15:48:02 +0000

Obligatory monthly library related post so I don’t lose my accreditation.

Our website redesign continues to plod along. In preparation, we have purchased a couple of additional III products which will facilitate some things we want to do on the new site. One of them, Patron API, is something I’ve wanted for a long time. It is a web service (well in essence…it is a pre-xml web service I guess…it spits out semi structured data as ersatz html) that allows your web apps to query the ILS’ patron records to perform authentication. The plan for the new website is this will allow validation of the patron’s website account against the ILS and additionally will obviate the need for users to remember their barcodes.

Just for giggles, I decided to rework our save for later system to authenticate against Patron API. The way it previously worked, once a week I would export the patron data from the ILS into a mysql database. This generally worked fine but it meant there could be as much as a week’s lag before new users (or users with new cards) could use the SFL system. And in the case of my recent two week vacation, as much as a three week lag.

Getting it working with Patron API instead was fairly straightforward. A few bumps with domain names, ssl and Patron API displaying the patron record number slightly differently than it is represented internally in the ILS, but everything seems to be working now. And tomorrow morning, one less weekly task to remember!

libraries, music, tech?

Mike — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 14:13:19 +0000

This site’s tagline has been “libraries, music, tech” right from the beginning. This was because I’d envisioned these being the main topics in roughly that order. However, tech has always been the most frequently posted category. This is because many library posts are tech related but not vice versa. Additionally, recently there has been a decline in library posts and an increase in “drink” posts.

I decided that it might be nice to make the logo image more timely. I coded up a php script that once a week will update the logo image to show the three most posted categories from the last two months. I guess ideally I would have ten or so category specific domains/site names but that’s way too much work and $…