Paychex Comes Up Short

Grok Headline matches for Paychex Comes Up Short

Short Men with Short Dreams

Short Men with Short Dreams 03/14/2005 05:39 PM
This will just be a quickie. New iPod photos and iPod minis were released today. Cheaper, bigger, whatever. The thing...

There's a Short for everyone here.

There's a Short for everyone here. 08/11/2004 10:26 AM
Char ade has never looked so good.
"Somebody told me the French made it up hundreds of years ago, but I always thought my dad invented it just for me." (And other cool shorts.)

In short...

In short... 08/04/2004 06:48 PM
Letters from the Presidents.

A Short Letter to Dan Rather

A Short Letter to Dan Rather 02/01/2005 08:39 PM
"So I kind of resent your attitude toward your numerous critics who operate their own self-published sites on the Web. They were being more accurate than you were, much of the time. I don't speak for them, but I know my own archive." Plus: Lose the spokeswoman, Dan. Hire a blogger.

Bobby Short

Bobby Short 03/22/2005 04:37 PM
R.I.P. Bobby Short. One of the finest cabaret singers of all time, and a Manhattan fixture at the Carlyle Hotel since 1968, Short died of leukemia yesterday. He was 80. Li sten to an NPR tribute. Time Magazine once said of him, "In an increasingly inelegant world, Bobby Short is the very symbol of elegance." Thankfully, many of his best recordings are available on CD. (Requisite Wikipedia entry.)

Stopping short

Stopping short 02/01/2005 10:02 PM
A U.N. report says that the crisis in Darfur, Sudan, constitutes "crimes against humanity," but not genocide.

ISS Spacewalk Cut Short

ISS Spacewalk Cut Short 06/25/2004 08:34 AM

short introduction

short introduction 03/06/2004 01:53 AM
Chilling ride through the Chernobyl "Dead Zone" .. She photo-blogs the journey here .. amateur photographer's bike trip .. Biker Chick does Chernobyl .. short introduction .. tour of Chernobyl .. Cool travelogue .. Elena

angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/page2.html
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i have a short webl0g

i have a short webl0g 01/07/2004 05:34 PM
sippey's taken some cool-looking pictures of a couple of weblogs, including mine

Short Circuit

Short Circuit 04/04/2005 06:03 AM
This month: W. Alan McCollough, CEO of Circuit City Stores.

but they stopped short

but they stopped short 03/27/2005 05:01 AM
"possible showdown" .. Miami Herald

miami.com/mld/miamiherald/11233240.htm
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Short And Sweet

Short And Sweet 06/08/2004 01:28 AM
Judging by the changes documented in the release notes, this update closes all the UPI/Launch Services-related vulnerabilities that have been publicized in the last month. By John Gruber (via MyAppleMenu)

"short introduction"

"short introduction" 03/06/2004 02:05 AM

The Short Story

The Short Story 01/22/2004 03:11 AM
Should you try to profit when stocks fall?

This Sport Comes Up Short

This Sport Comes Up Short 08/27/2004 01:40 PM
Sports Authority's partial reports can't hide dismal numbers.

Spacewalk cut short

Spacewalk cut short 06/26/2004 07:29 AM
USA Today Jun 26 2004 12:07PM GMT

Cutting it short

Cutting it short 01/02/2005 04:23 PM

I have a family crisis in Japan and need to return to Japan immediately. Apologies to people who I had been planning to meet this trip in San Francisco. I'll be back soon.

Comment - TrackBack

Short Animation

Short Animation 04/10/2005 12:45 PM
Pixar has the name recognition, but plenty of other folks do some mighty fine animation. Thanks to Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt the Animation Show aims to bring them to your town. A celebratory selection of shorts inside.

PCs Are Falling Short

PCs Are Falling Short 07/09/2004 06:22 AM
Fortune Jul 9 2004 10:50AM GMT

Here's the short version:

Here's the short version: 07/19/2004 11:34 PM
Hijinks ensue .. Las Vegas Sun

lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/gaming/2004/jul/19/517195568.html
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Short Takes

Short Takes 07/28/2004 01:05 AM
Computerworld Singapore Jul 28 2004 5:51AM GMT

A Short Goodby

A Short Goodby 09/27/2004 11:03 AM
A short goodby. A memo received by a blogger/journalist. Is this in any way typical? Can we find out who or what it concerns?

Short Trip to Bombay?

Short Trip to Bombay? 08/23/2004 02:34 PM
Bombay's been stinking for a while, but it can always get worse.

Hybrid Mileage Comes Up Short

Hybrid Mileage Comes Up Short 05/11/2004 04:53 AM
Hybrid car owners who thought they'd be getting much better fuel effeciency than conventional cars have been disappointed. The problem isn't company claims, it's an outmoded EPA testing procedure. By John Gartner.

New short from Susannah Breslin

New short from Susannah Breslin 04/10/2004 05:48 PM
Former BoingBoing guestblogger Susa nnah "Invisible Cowgirl" Breslin celebrates a birthday today. She also a new short story out in Ducky Magazine. Dig the phat cover art. Excerpt:

One morning, she woke up and discovered that her head was gone. She had reached up to pat her hair, or rub the sleep from her eyes, or scratch her ear, and she had realized that her head was nowhere to be found. Where, she wondered, had it gone? She had no idea at all. She could not recall, in fact, very well what had happened the previous evening. She had been at a bar, and she had gotten drunk, and then she had come back home. From what she could remember, her head had still been sitting squarely on her shoulders when she had climbed into bed. Perhaps, she considered, her head had run off at some point during the night while she lay sleeping.

Link to "The Woman Who Lost Her Head".

Will Longhorn Be Short On Features?

Will Longhorn Be Short On Features? 03/19/2005 02:29 AM

Microsoft's much anticipated and frequently postponed OS may ultimately lack compelling reasons for customers to upgrade. By Ed Scannell, InfoWorld

Rohrabacher's short memory

Rohrabacher's short memory 06/02/2004 03:18 PM

Short trip to Japan

Short trip to Japan 04/09/2004 04:00 PM
Hi folks well I am off to Japan tomorrow for a few days and will be back here in Hawaii...

WinInfo Short Takes

WinInfo Short Takes 09/03/2004 06:02 PM

Direct and Related Links for 'WinInfo Short Takes'

An often irreverent look at some of the week’s other news, including the irony of Apple’s MSN Music comments, Gates vs. Jobs on portable video, some XP SP2 stuff, Microsoft and Intel reduce earnings estimates, and much, much more. This week’s installment….

The longest short IP Sec Paper

The longest short IP Sec Paper 02/01/2005 08:34 PM

At Nortel, All the Straws Are Short

At Nortel, All the Straws Are Short 05/26/2004 07:34 AM
Business Week May 26 2004 12:05PM GMT

Rambus Sales Come Up Short

Rambus Sales Come Up Short 04/14/2004 06:27 PM
TheStreet.com Apr 14 2004 10:40PM GMT

Changing Short Names

Changing Short Names 05/26/2004 01:05 AM
By Christopher Breen, Macworld (via MyAppleMenu)

Short (squeeze) stories

Short (squeeze) stories 12/28/2004 03:41 PM
CNN Money Dec 28 2004 7:37PM GMT

Longhorn Comes Up Short
(washingtonpost.com)

Longhorn Comes Up Short
(washingtonpost.com) 08/30/2004 10:01 AM
washingtonpost.com - At long last, Microsoft has put a date on when it will release the next generation of its Windows operating system. But the 2006 delivery of "Longhorn" will ship without the highly touted Windows File System feature, raising all sorts of questions about the future of the world's biggest software company.

Homeowners Come Up Short on Insurance

Homeowners Come Up Short on Insurance 08/30/2004 10:45 PM
Millions of homeowners are underinsured, fed largely by a shift in the way property insurance has been sold in recent years.

Short-Cited Insights about RSS

Short-Cited Insights about RSS 02/07/2005 01:41 AM

On page six of the February issue (PDF) of Cites & Insights (“Rss hub-bub”), Walt Crawford pooh-poohs the idea of ILS vendors providing native RSS feeds out of the catalog. It’s a difficult assertion to challenge because nowhere in his comments does Walt use the word “because,” thereby directly stating his objection(s). There are implications, though, so let’s examine them since they are all we have to go on.

First of all, Walt seems to think that someone has advocated libraries replace their email alerts with RSS alerts. That’s a statement Walt can’t back up, although I’m sure he’ll note it if he has proof of *anyone* ever in the history of the world using the word “replace” or a synonym. If he backs off from that statement, I’ll be curious to know why his first assumption was that the two can’t live happily ever after together, side by side, especially since RSS would be the driving force behind the new titles lists he claims will vanish into the olden days of yesteryear.

In reality, the only time I’ve ever received an email from my catalog is when I had a book that was really, really, really, really, really overdue and I think they were about to send Guido after me. That they’ll email me about. But the convenience notice when it’s a couple of days overdue (or even a couple of weeks or months)? Fuggedaboutit. So SWAN libraries, consider this me begging for email alerts! Oh, and I guarantee you that none of my libraries went to Innovative (or before that GEAC) asking for email alerts. It’s just something that made a lot of sense, the vendor understood what was happening in the outside world, and the code was relatively easy to implement. Just like RSS.

Next, Walt seems to advocate that libraries shouldn’t offer a service for what he asserts is 1% or less of your population. I’m not challenging the mathematical figure, but I can think of lots of services that libraries provide for users that comprise less than 1% of our patrons. Let’s use my home library as an example. They serve a population of about 30,000 people right now. One percent of the current population would be 300 people, and 1% of actual users would probably be closer to 150. So what services do they offer that only 149 or fewer people use? Here’s a list just to name a few:

• Homebound service (even though we have a lot of senior housing in our area);
• Sign language translators for patrons who are deaf and might attend their programs;
• Night Owl telephone reference service;
• A form for challenging “offensive” titles in the collection.
• A web site that is accessible to blind users.
• The ability to use a USB flash drive with the library’s computers (I’m sure that figure is rising, but I don’t see tons of patrons picketing libraries over this one and yet a lot of libraries are now offering this).

I don’t think Walt would quibble that these are all valuable, even essential, services, but then he’d probably be basing those decisions on factors other than how many people are using the service. Nowhere in his comments does Walt use any other criterion for RSS, so why the double standard?

In addition, far less than 1% of 1% of a library’s RSS users actually go to the trouble of programming for themselves services the library’s catalog doesn’t offer. However, I can name three off the top of my head (from across North America), the most obvious example being Peter Rukavina who rolled his own RSS but is [rightly] too busy to help the rest of us who would like to provide that service but aren’t programmers. If his home library wanted to, they could download his script and start displaying the list of their new DVDs on their own web site, but they can’t get it natively from their own ILS. What’s wrong with that picture?

Of course, you could also flip this example and argue that you really should be providing a service that your users want badly enough that they resort to hacking your catalog and then noting it on their very public blog. There are at least three examples of users who are running scripts against catalogs, and there are a lot more who have signed up with Library ELF, probably without their librarys’ knowledge. Disclaimer: I love ELF, and I use it myself. I’m willing to give my personal data to a guy in Canada in order to get the email and RSS alerts my catalog refuses to give me. I can’t imagine that Walt thinks that a non-programmer like myself should be forced to do that just to get an RSS feed of what I have checked out, but he also doesn’t seem to care about RSS in the context of patron data. I assure you there is no one at MLS or at a SWAN library that can code this themselves to offer it to patrons, which means we’d be forced to have someone else do this. Why shouldn’t that be the vendor?

But just because Walt doesn’t do it, doesn’t mean I won’t look at other criteria to discuss reasons to implement RSS. In a previous post, I noted that in my library system alone, we could conceivably save 924 hours of actual librarian work each year if our vendor, Innovative, provided native RSS feeds out of the catalog. Let’s take it a step further and come up with the number of potential saved work hours for just half of the 3,700 libraries in Illinois. Let’s say that only half of them might actually take advantage of RSS feeds to change how they display new titles on their web sites. If this saved just one hour per month for 1,850 libraries, native RSS feeds would save Illinois librarians 22,200 hours in just one year.

So even if there was never a single patron that subscribed to a single feed, it would save Illinois librarians 22,200 hours, and let me tell you something: other than funding, the biggest thing we could really use more of is time (which can also be translated into more staffing, but on a personal level, I feel very constrained time-wise). So now we’ve freed up 22,200 hours of librarians’ days, thanks to relatively easy programming on the part of the major vendors. How awesome is that?! And if my vendor can’t understand that kind of savings, then I have to question them as my vendor. Sometimes you really can make a big difference with just “a flip of the switch.”

Other ways I think native RSS feeds would be used, furthering the benefit to libraries:

• I think there are users who would display queues (if we offered queues) or lists on their sites, just like they do now with NetFlix and Amazon. I’m even willing to bet my hat that some of them (yes, less than 1%) would display what they have checked out at this moment, just like they do with NetFlix and Amazon (“what I’m reading now”). While you’re at it, throw music in there, too, since a lot of people (less than 1%) like to post what they’re listening to as they’re composing their blog posts.
• Library holdings could be displayed on third-party web sites, like a school’s site, an academic department’s site, or a community’s site. In fact, libraries could partner with newspapers, area sports clubs (a brilliant idea from Stephen Abrams), and other groups to more easily display material on their web sites. The content would update automatically, thereby keeping those librarian hours free for other tasks.

And yet, Walt doesn’t think it’s exciting that ILS vendors are starting to offer this type of support to libraries. In fact, Walt doesn’t seem to think that ILS vendors should be providing RSS feeds here and now at all. I don’t see any of my member libraries clammoring for Z39.50 compliance with the Bath Profile, but that doesn’t mean Innovative shouldn’t be compliant or working on it (number of patrons who are requesting this or even know about Z39.50: zero). I don’t hear about any of my member libraries doing anything with Dublin Core metadata, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be (number of patrons who are requesting this or even know about DC: zero). Should vendors offer only those services that are formally requested by 50% of library users (the implication Walt makes by noting that even in his high-tech community, less than half the residents probably know about RSS)? What’s the magic number at which Walt would consent to let ILS vendors start working on providing RSS feeds? 40%?  25%?  10%?  Hopefully he will leave a comment so the vendors will know when to start.

 I don’t know if he was just lobbing a softball over the plate in order to help prove the point that native RSS feeds would be valuable right now or if he truly believes the position he declines to actually support, but either way, this one clearly demonstrates Walt’s bias against RSS. That’s okay, because everyone has their biases. This time, though, Walt’s just asking for trouble.

Adolor Drug Comes Up Short

Adolor Drug Comes Up Short 12/24/2004 12:15 PM
The company announces trial results that, once again, do not meet primary end points.

Will Your Next PC Be Short on Memory?
(PC World)

Will Your Next PC Be Short on Memory?
(PC World) 04/21/2004 02:18 PM
PC World - Rising DRAM prices could prompt vendors to cut bundled memory, analysts warn.
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Paychex Comes Up Short

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