John McCain’s MySpace “Enhancement” Makes Daily Show

The Daily Show recently spoke about John McCain’s MySpace "Enhancement" and other 2.0-related campaigning. The title of the segment "Indecision 2.008">

As if otters weren't cute enough already...

these two are holding hands.

Authors @ Google

Authors from Lawrence Lessig to Neil Gaiman have spoken to Google employees. Google has made the videos available on YouTube.

Look, a gopher!

Index of gopher://gopher.quux.org/

The funny part is that Blogger gave me a bit of trouble when I tried creating this post.

Brooklyn Public Library Says Not So Fast

According to Library Journal BPL isn't as close to partnering with NetFlix as a New York Post article proclaimed.

Doctor Who Serries 3 Trailer

Here's the new full trailer for series three which, BTW, starts Satudray so don't anyone bother calling me on Sunday.

Banking adventure, part 2

I received a response from US Bank today regarding access to my funds. Here it is:

Dear Michael P. Sauers,

When a deposit is made to an account 30 days old or younger, only $100.00 total is available the same business day. The remaining funds are held for five business days. While the hold is in place the funds are not available for paying outstanding transactions. Examples of deposits which are not subject to a hold are: cash deposits with a teller, direct deposit, and wire transfers We will also allow same-day processing for deposits which were issued from another U.S. Bank account, and are deposited with a teller before the cut-off time. Unfortunately, all deposits made at an ATM are subject to being held, if they exceed $100.00. f items presented exceed the available balance, including the first $100.00 of the deposit, the account is subject to charges.

Once the account is 31 days or older, the deposit held pending verification will last for one business night. Information regarding our Funds Availability Policy was provided to you in writing at account opening in the customer agreement titled, Your Deposit Account Agreement. You will find this information in the section titled "Funds Availability: Your Ability to Withdraw Funds-ll Accounts," beginning on page 35. If you are in need of this agreement again, please provide us with your mailing address so e may send this to you. You may also find this agreement online by completing the following:

- Visit www.usbank.com
- Click Checking Accounts from the home page
- Click Apply Now
- Click Account Disclosures, Terms and Conditions
- Select Deposit Account Agreement

I sincerely apologize for the confusion.

Please keep in mind, items on your account are paid based upon the available balance. The running balance online may reflect in blue. The blue balance is a link, and when clicked, will open up a box. In the box, you will be provided with your available balance and the amount of unavailable funds a that point in time. This means there were deposited funds being held or check card authorizations outstanding against the balance.

Please let us know if you have any further questions or concerns. Personal Bankers are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,365 days a year. Have a great day.

*For your protection, please send your personal information through our secured email service only. Simply complete the following to reply with sensitive information:
- Point your browser to http://www.usbank.com
- Select "Contact Us" at the top of the page.
- Select the type of account you are referencing.
- Submit your information using the "Email Us" form provided.

Sincerely,

Angie Kreamier
Email Operations
U.S. Bank 24-Hour Banking & Financial Sales

If you need further assistance, please feel free to call 1-800-USBANKS (1-800-872-2657) or go to www.usbank.com and select 'Contact Us' link. If you are out of the country, you may call us collect at 1-503-401-9991.

This isn't really an answer as they've told me I'll have access to the balance of my funds after 5 days, which is what I was not told at the bank. ($4900 after five days, the rest after 10.) I'll try again to get some clarification.

Then, I get a very scary balance alert:

Luckily I have no outstanding transactions.

This is why I don't own a video game system...

A 22-month-old could kick by butt!

Rebus Generator

link

Word Puzzle Generator

link

Web 2.0 Logo Creatr

Bill Gates vs. Steve Jobs

Contains mild adult language.

The Hole - video powered by Metacafe

Update: Paying to speak

It turns out that Jane was not being asked to pay to speak. It was all a misunderstanding. However, I still agree with the underlying point of the story: don't charge your speakers to attend your conference.

Nobody looks happy, either way.

This one's for Sara although at just 13, I'm pretty sure she won't get it.

Ashtray Head at the library

Scott Adams has sent the new manger "Ashtray Head" to the library.

My first pipe

I finally got around to playing with Yahoo Pipes today and came up with a list of Lincoln, NE-related library Web sites, blog posts, and photographs. The output can be seen @ http://pipes.yahoo.com/. Here's an image of how the pipe's set up. (You can also see the back end by going to the output page and clicking on "view pipe".

Banking adventure

Yesterday I deposited a rather large sum into my bank account. The sum was made up of two checks one for $5.99, the other for more than $35,000. I figured there would be a hold put on the funds so I went in to deal with a teller instead of using the ATM. When the teller saw the amount of check #2 she informed me that there would be a hold on the funds as I expected and then asked me if I would still like to make the deposit. Considering that the funds would do me no good in their current form, why would I not want to make the deposit?

The deposit was made and then she had to fill out some paperwork to officially inform me about the hold time on my money. Now that the money was deposited it was treated as a single amount, let's call that amount $35,005.99. I was told that $100 would be made available to me immediately. Wait, shouldn't that be $105.99? There's no hold on the first check as it's too small to have a hold put on it (holds start at $5,000) and I should get $100 out of the check with the hold. Well, since it was all deposited together I just get $100. (I'm not being stingy here but I would have had access to $105.99 if I'd done two separate deposits so why should I get access to less if I saved them some work by doing a single deposit?)

I understand the $100 immediately policy. It's a courtesy to me as the customer as they need to wait for the check to clear before giving me the majority of the funds. Fine, o.k., so as soon as the large check clears I get the rest of my money. Well, sort of...

It turns out that I'll be getting access to the funds in two stages. After five business days I'll have access to an additional $4,900. (Presumably that plus the first $100 equals the $5,000 amount that triggered the hold in the first place.) Then, after ten business days I'll get access to the outstanding balance of my deposit.

What? Either the check has cleared after five business days or it hasn't. If five days isn't enough (which these days should be more than enough) make it ten. Let's say the check isn't good and hasn't cleared after five days, what exactly is the point of giving me $4,900? Or, if the check has cleared within the five day window, why can't I have access to all of it?

Unfortunately I didn't think to ask at the time but I will be e-mailing my bank to see if I can get a logical answer.

Sunsets in my back yard

I still can't believe the sunsets that I get to watch out my back yard most nights...

University of Nebraska won't play along

I can't say that living in Lincoln is going to turn me into a Huskers fan but this news has started to turn me into a fan of someone on campus. Turns out that University of Nebraska will bill RIAA $11 for each threatening letter received from the RIAA. The RIAA has backed down!

28 Weeks Later

Trailer

How I Became A Music Pirate

Some wonder why people think it's o.k. to do things with music they've purchased that the RIAA doesn't want you to do. Well here's the story of how one man became a "music pirate".

"'Well' she responded, 'You didn't actually purchase the files, you really purchased a license to listen to the music, and the license is very specific about how they can be played or listened to.'"

The Official L.E. Modesitt, Jr. Fan Site

I've relaunched my L.E. Modesitt, Jr. site. Come check it out.

Paying to speak

Jane has posted about Why I May Not Be Giving My Preconference at TLA and I can't agree with her more. I once pulled out of LITA National as I was not going to pay to present and others have blogged about this issue before. Jane, you have my full support.

Hello, I'm Linux

Star Wars PSA

BitTorrent humor

Today's Real Life comic takes on "watching" UK TV via BitTorrent. I have this conversation with myself all the time. (Doctor Who Series three starts this Saturday! Guess what I'll be watching on Sunday.)

Amazon 1, Libraries 0

Seth Godin points out a new feature in Amazon that links citations but distinctly points out that you won't find this feature at your library.

Libraries and Netflix

Can't afford to replace all those DVDs that your patrons seem to chew on? Why not outsource your DVD collection to Netflix? Brooklyn PL is considering doing just that.

"In what would be a first in the United States, the Brooklyn Public Library hopes to team up with Netflix to deliver DVDs and videos to anyone in the borough with a library card, The Post has learned. The price would be unbeatable - free."

Doctor Who Series 3 clip

It's only eight seconds long and it's definitely for the ladies. Via YouTube. (Embedding not allowed by the BBC.)

Magazine help

My best friend needs help finding magazines for her daughter. Leave suggestions a comments.

I have been trying to find a magazine my 13 year-old daughter feels like reading. She gets the kids' version of National Geographic (for the animals, mostly), but hasn't been able to find anything with actual articles aimed at girls her age. Apparently, girls under the age of 10 are supposed to be encouraged to have brains and to read (and write) and think. Once they turn 10, they are not supposed to read anything else until they hit puberty, at which point they are to read only about boys, sex, hair, clothes, makeup, and pop stars and are not supposed to write or think about anything substantial again until they are well into their late twenties. At that point, intelligent thoughts are permitted to occur as long as they are kept under the guise of boys/men, sex, hair, clothes, makeup, (older) pop stars, children, etc.

This is an official APB. If anyone is aware of an intelligent magazine suitably aimed at girls 12-16-ish, please let me know where the heck I can find it.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

Trailer!

del.icio.us RSS

It turns out that more than 50% of requests for data from the del.icio.us site are from RSS, not humans. Because of this the folks at del.icio.us are working to improve what gets delivered via their RSS feeds such as "offering the ability to save bookmarks straight from your feed reader" and "displaying an up-to-date count of saves, without making items appear new again in feed readers". More details on the del.icio.us blog.

Spammers, and proud of it

Seth Godin takes on Reed Elsevier's recent "marketing". It's worth blogging as I wonder if an LIS blogs out there have experienced this?

"Over the last few weeks, I've received several meails [sic], all the same, all from real people at Reed. They baldly (and boldly) ask me to swap links with them as part of a scheme to move up the Google rankings. Anyone who reads this blog knows that I don't do that, nor does any reputable blog I know of."

Shutdown Day is tomorrow

There's just a little less than 13 hours left until Shutdown Day. Have you made the committment? Can you follow through?

Referenceing Twitter

The Nebrask Library Commission's reference staff are Twittering! Check them out at http://twitter.com/NLC_Reference.

Herding Avatars is like herding cats

NLC Group Photo Outtake
Originally uploaded by Travelin' Librarian.

The NLC Network Services staff got together this afternoon to take a group photo in front of our new building in Second Life. Getting everyone in the right clothes, in the right place, not tripping over each other, and finally into the right pose is no easy task. Oh, then there's the lighting issues... Look for the final result shortly on the NLC blog.

Apple 1984 commercial remix

I'm not getting into politics here. I'm not supporting a particular candidate at the moment. However, I have to share this video supporting Obama (though the Obama campaign denies they had anything to do with it,) just due to its creativity for those that remember the classic Apple commercial.

Twin Lakes, CO

After several attempts, one of my photos of Twin Lakes, CO was finally deemed worth of acceptance into the Wallpaper Web site InterfaceLIFT. Check it out. There are 13 different resolutions available ranging from 2560x1600 to one small enough for your iPod.

This cartoon made me think of Twitter

via gapingvoid

Twittered out?

Just use AutoTwit. Write your posts, set a schedule, and forget it.

Bite me alien boy!

Vista: Problem Reports and Solutions

Vista: Problem Reports and Solutions
Originally uploaded by Travelin' Librarian.

When a program crashes in Vista, the OS attempts to "find a solution" to the problem. For the first time yesterday a "solution" was found to a Firefox crash. The "solution" presented was to upgrade to the newer version of Firefox. A handy link to to the Mozilla site was even given to me. Here's the rub, I'm running the latest version of Firefox; no upgrade is available. Does Vista know something I don't? Don't get me wrong, this is all a great idea but it needs to work in order to be helpful. I was sure to click on the "Provide Feedback" link and let Microsoft know just what I thought of their "solution".

iTunes & Vista

iTunes & Vista
Originally uploaded by Travelin' Librarian.

Well, I updated to version 7.1.1 today which said addressed "minor compatibility problems". Despite the fact that I don't view any of the problems I've been having "minor" updates rarely do damage so I had hope. The result: no noticeable change. The display problems have not gone away.

iTunes & Vista

Just when you think the display "problems" can't get any worse, exhibit A:

RIP Pandora

Pandora is dead due the the recently new (retroactive no less) Internet radio royalty rates. As Doc Searls put it:

"In a move that recalls the Vogons' decision to destroy Earth to clear the way for a highway bypass through space (a thankfully fictional premise of Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy), the judges comprising the Copyright Royalty Board have decided to destroy the Internet radio industry so the Recording Industry won't be inconvenienced by something it doesn't know, like or understand."

Slow Performance From Outlook 2007?

I'm not experiencing slowdowns but it does make me wonder about usuing Outlook 2007 as a feed agregator.

"Adding RSS feeds can quickly swell the in-boxes of many users to more than 2GB of data, according to O'Kelly. He said that causes Outlook 2007, especially when it's running on PCs that don't have large amounts of memory, to write to the hard drive much more often than it typically does -- resulting in performance slowdowns. Hopefully, Microsoft will be able to better tune that part of the software before the next major release, O'Kelly said."

Computers in Libraries will be all a Twitter

I've set up a twitter account for CIL. If you are attending and wish to have you're updates passed on to the conference account, send me your Twitter username (a comment left here will do but you can also e-mail it to me,) and I'll add you. If you're not attending and wish to follow the conference via Twitter, watch http://www.twitter.com/cil2007 14-19 April 2007.

Done the Impossible

This will make so of you finally learn how to use a BitTorrent client.

Batgirl was a librarian

Keep that in mind when you watch this.

Interesting Second Life advertising

Yes folks, someone has built something in Second Life that's large enough to be read as an advertisement on the map.

Bye Bye Stardust

Some of you may not know this but I lived in Las Vegas from 1995 to 1997. While I was there I got to watch the demolition of the Sands on New Years Eve (1995-6 I believe). I recall that the adds for the event said something like "In New York they drop a ball. In Las Vegas we drop a building!" Anyway, I share this because I just stumbled over a video of the demolition of the Stardust. It's not your typical demolition. Only in Vegas...

Which Serenity character are you?

My results:
I am Malcolm Reynolds (Captain)

Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) 70% Wash (Ship Pilot) 60% Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) 60% Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) 50% Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic) 50% Inara Serra (Companion) 45% Derrial Book (Shepherd) 40% Jayne Cobb (Mercenary) 30% River (Stowaway) 30% A Reaver (Cannibal) 10% Alliance 5%

Honest and a defender of the innocent. You sometimes make mistakes in judgment but you are generally good and would protect your crew from harm.

Click here to take the "Which Serenity character are you?" quiz...

Safe!

If you get this joke, you're a total geek... (In a good way.)

One-sided Twitter conversations

I'm being sucked in by Twitter. So much so that I complained to one friend that she never posts and she retorted with the fact that I'd not yet moved my Twitter widget to my sidebar. But that doesn't exactly address the title of this post...

Lat night I got to watch one side of several conversations. What was happening is one of my Twitter friends, person A, was obviously posting back and forth with one of their Twitter friends, person B. However person B isn't a friend of mine so I was unable to "hear" their side of the conversation. In this particular instance I was thinking that the conversation was more interesting this way but not knowing what the actual topic was, it just got me thinking.

Work @ Your Library

Shutdown Day

Saturday, March 24th has been named Shutdown Day. Can you turn off all your computers for 24 hours? Not only will it save a lot of energy it'll give you a chance to read that book you've been meaning to get to. I'm going to do it. Can you?

Denver Public Library Video Contest Winners

I'm not sure I blogged about this before but I did post a screenshot of the contest on flickr. DPL was holding a video contest for teens and have posted the winning videos.

A Basic Twitter Search Engine

Steve Rubel at the Micro Persuasion blog has used Google to create a basic Twitter search engine. Here's the results for searching library.

300

Now this is a movie review! (Courtesy of horror author Brian Keene.)

Viacom sues Google/YouTube for (insert Dr. Evil joke here)

Here's the basic story and the Google Copyright Blog has the full text of the complaint as a PDF.

"YouTube is a significant, for-profit organization that has built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others' creative works in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent Google."

Dean Koontz in Second Life

From the BDD Web site:
"Not only has Dean Koontz completed THE GOOD GUY (coming in hardcover 5/29) but he’s also ready to read some of it to you. Dean will be appearing—rather, his avatar will be appearing—in SECOND LIFE on Thursday, 3/15, at 6pm (PST), as the first-ever “Bantam Dell Authors-in-Second-Life” event. Already a member of Second Life? Visit The Bantam Dell Book Shop in Second Life for more details."

Save as PDF or XPS directly from Office 2007

I'm assuming this is a result of the PDF format going open source but you can now install an add-on for Office 2007 to give you the ability to directly save your documents in the PDF or XPS file formats.

Microsoft Photo Info

Here's one for the metadata librarians: The Microsoft Photo Info download allows you to "Easily view and change 'metadata' properties in digital photographs from within Windows Explorer."

Vista doesn't "help"

It turns out that Vista Windows Help files (.hlp) any more as they're too old. (They've been around since Windows 3.1. Those needing the ability to read such files need to download the Windows Help program (WinHlp32.exe) for Windows Vista from Microsoft.

Weather explorer umbrella

Let me get this straight, this is an umbrella that tells you what the weather's like? Uh, wouldn't the need to use the umbrella for it's main purpose be a big clue? Or, does it allow you to "experience" the weather from somewhere else other than where you are? I'm confused.