Blogging

Blog Angels protect my blog: who's protecting yours?

effinglibrarian — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:53:05 -0500

I have good news for visitors of the.effing.librarian: I've recently contracted with Blog Angels.

Blog Angels provides blog guard services for major corporations around the world. Many web sites are continually and constantly monitored by corporate staff, but small blogs like mine are often left unoccupied for hours at a time (Blake assures me that this is not the case with LISNews as he hires day-laborers of questionable legal status to monitor and guard this site). But I can't be everywhere at once; I need to eat and work and poop. Okay, yes I do all those things at my desk, but you know what I mean.

So who is there to guard your blog when you are away? Who's going to keep out the riff-raff? Have you ever seen a blog that's been overtaken by hoodlums and thugs? I've seen plenty of blogs, innocent oases for vacation photos, kitties wearing feather boas, breastfeeding tips, and diet diaries suddenly get tagged with graffitos, their banners pulled down, posts disassembled, and feeds choked without that watchful eye or sturdy boot around to keep order.

And that's where Blog Angels comes in. The brainchild of Tina V., a former Guardian Angel® and Ray O., a third-degree black belt and former Green Beret, Blog Angels watches over my blog to keep you safe. Intellectual property is no joke, and neither is your security. Blog Angels guarantees to keep the peace. With Blog Angels on the job, know that your comments are safe from vandalism and your visits are as uneventful at night as they would be in daylight. Anytime, 24/7/365 that you visit the.effing.librarian, you'll be safe from muggings, car jackings, terrorist dirty bombs, and litterbugs.

When you see the "winged sword stabbing a computer"™ logo, you know that everything is well. With Blog Angels on the job.

If you don't blog every day or if you're worried about what happens to your blog when you can't be there, then try Blog Angels: a little piece of mind for your little piece of the Net.

Mention the.effing.librarian and get the first month free.

Digital Deception: Cracking CAPTCHAs

Blake — Thu, 01 May 2008 10:42:48 -0500

The Washington Post: With a test, Web sites let people in and keep out computers set to unleash spam attacks. Now, computers are cracking the code.

5150 TMNK

birdie — Thu, 01 May 2008 06:59:59 -0500

Cool, caring young New York artist, the me nobody knows...and his flickr page.

Do I really want it all?

StephenK — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:10:09 -0500

The planning wiki for Uncontrolled Vocabulary showed a piece from ACRLog impacting NexGens. As a twenty-something myself, I imagine I would have some reflections about the reluctance to go into administration. I should say that that does not extend to leadership across the board. Library administration just seems to be an odd task.

The post by "StevenB" was entitled: "Sorry But You Can’t Have It All". The post cites that NexGens want better work/life balance and look negatively upon the time required. My earnest attempt at summarizing a couple paragraphs is that NexGens apparently require that leaders have a sort of master-apprentice relationship with those under their care.

Have I served previously as a library administrator? Yes. If you can imagine a twenty-five year old academic library director then you can picture what October 2006 was like for me as an acting director. In that job I was the second in command anyhow when the library director was present which resulted in my having day to day responsibility for operations about three-quarters of the library's open hours. Oddly enough, this post from ACRLog is something I am qualified to speak on.

As an administrator, I had a closed off office. I had little to no patron interaction. I did great cataloging and read AUTOCAT messages to keep up but otherwise was very isolated. That was very rough at times. The job was most enjoyable when I relieved other staff for their lunch breaks and had to take up roles such as supervising special collections or the education collection.

Having said that, I will explain why I do not particularly covet any directorial posts right now. Frankly, I think I would get very bored in doing such. It is not that I mind strange hours and all. I have been a substitute teacher and still hold active licensure for such with the State of Nevada. I am used to getting phone calls and having fifteen minutes to somehow manage to eat breakfast, get a shower, get dressed, and get to the school I have to work at. For me, that is just normal. The biggest issue, though, is having enough joy in the work.

In many respects, modern librarianship is not about the books. Modern librarianship is about people. Modern librarianship is about helping people meet their needs. In any setting like that I want to be on the front end serving people. While serving those who serve people can also be noble I find joy in helping people. Job satisfaction happens when I see patrons/customers/users/clients/whatever have an "Aha!" moment where their need(s) are somewhat fulfilled and their adventures can continue.

I do not see the matter as being whether you can have it all or not. If anything this is a matter of cultural gaps. Rather than ask about having it all, would it not be better to ask what defines success? Finding why there are differences in the definition of success is probably far more important than trying to keep everyone conformed to one model of success. If there has been societal change, is the old norm for success necessarily still valid?

Google's pointers on countering Web spam

Blake — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 08:52:15 -0500

Matt Cutts, head of Google's Webspam team and an engineer who's been working on the problem for eight years, offered some tips about combating it during a speech at the Web 2.0 Expo here.
• Use captcha systems to make sure real people, not bots, are commenting on your site.
• Reconfigure software settings after you've installed it
• Employ systems that rank people by trust and reputation.
• Don't be afraid of legitimate purveyors of search-engine optimization services.

Banter on the books blog

Blake — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 14:37:13 -0500

Shirley Dent wonders Is her commenting culture so civilised because books breed wit and intelligence, or because what we discuss is not so grave?

Tired of Twitter?

Great Western Dragon — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 08:49:07 -0500

Are you tired of reading banal BS on Twitter?

Or maybe, just maybe, does it scare you that so many people Twitter the most personal things?

Well it scares Tycho too. And today's Penny Arcade tackles the topic of Twittering when it goes a little too far.

Warning: Language is not for the easily offended. Regardless, it's still hilarious.

Twittering For Help

Great Western Dragon — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 16:08:53 -0500

A while back, on this very site, a sort of debate flourished about Twitter. Does it matter? Is it useful? I like it. I don't. It's crap. It's great.

And so the discussion continues.

However, a journalism student from UC Berkeley found Twitter to be of real use when he was swept up by Egyptian police while filming a protest. By tapping out one single word on his phone (ARRESTED) he alerted a network of friends and family to his situation.

Mercury News has the story.

Brazil blocks access to Wordpress because some blog upset a lawyer

mdoneil — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 02:00:54 -0500

Brazilian ISPs are preparing to block access to all wordpress.com sites after a judge ordered a block on a particular blog hosted there.

The ISPs claim they cannot block one particular blog from that domain, but rather must block the whole wordpress.com TLD. I'm no expert on ISPs nor Brazilian law, but this seems like the ISPs want to kill a fly with a shotgun.

If you are interested, and can read Portugese, the article from G1 is interesting.

Blogging? Make Sure You've Got All the Necessary Pages

birdie — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:16:18 -0500

Helpful hints from ProBlogger.