LibraryLookup

Heard about this neat little tool (at OSCON) for looking up books that you find on amazon at your local library's web site. Here is the link for the Elon bookmarklet. Click here: Jon Udell: LibraryLookup (DRA libraries), then scroll down to "Elon" under USA-North Carolina, etc... Don't click the link... Instead, drag the link to your links bar in your browser, or to your bookmarks folder.

Now, navigate to a page on amazon for a book you like. While you're on that page, click the little bookmarklet you just created. A popup window will open showing whether the book is in Belk Library. Cool, huh?

O'Reilly Open Source Convention 2004

Yes, I am blogging from the O'Reilly Open Source Convention 2004. Go on over to my personal blog The Ninth Bit for my convention coverage.

My talk is described here:
Do the Rich Get Richer? The Impact of Power Laws on Open Source Development Projects -
and here are the ppt, sxi, and pdf files.

hard drive drama

Following a very exciting hard drive crash last week, I have decided to move to linux on my work laptop. This is a very exciting change for me, as I've been meaning to do it for quite some time. I haven't had linux on a desktop machine since 2001. Some things have improved greatly. Some things still seem like a pain in the butt (X, for one). So far the changes I've made are thus:

Debian linux, gnome desktop, mozilla for web and mail, yahoo calendar, open office, xchat for IRC.

So far, so good. Haven't yet got wireless or printing up and running. No database server yet. Apache seems to be running but I haven't done anything with it yet. (No php). No graphical ftp client (low priority). No vpn solution yet. I'm still using my home Winxp laptop for a few things, like printing.

What is amazing is that the amount that we can do through the web is getting so much greater. It's really neat how far web applications have come in just a few short years. Web apps I can't live without: mozilla web & mail, yahoo calendar, bugmenot, hyperlinkomatic, google toolbar, blogthis.