e-Minister will make every public library a Wi-Fi hotspot
Grok Headline matches for e-Minister will make every public library a Wi-Fi hotspot
Penn. Town Gets Second Wi-Fi Hotspot: the Library
Penn. Town Gets Second Wi-Fi Hotspot: the Library05/12/2004 11:11 AM Newtown, Pa., renovates library and installs Wi-Fi, doubling town's
Wi-Fi hotspot count: The small town of Newtown has a Starbucks with
fee Wi-Fi access as its sole reported public Wi-Fi. This library isn't
public; it's supported by membership dues since 1760. The library
isn't sure whether they will open the Wi-Fi access to all, or just to
members....
Denver Public Library Launches New Digital Library
Denver Public Library?s new online service is giving city
residents access to popular eBooks directly from their homes and
offices. The Library serves over a half-million residents and 80% of
the city?s population has a library card and access to the new
service. ?This is an exciting opportunity to provide eBooks to the
city,? said Michelle Jeske, Manager of Web Information Services. ?This
year, we saw a 24% increase in the number of online library
transactions. eBooks that can be downloaded from our website fit very
well with this kind of public demand,? she added.
Foreign minister talks with public first time via Internet
Prime Minister Breaks Pledge to British Public03/19/2003 10:25 PM British Prime Minister Tony Blair now appears bent on breaking the
promise he made to the British public just last month regards going to
war with Iraq. He said that there were only two circumstances under
which he would be willing to go forward: If a UN Resolution
specifically authorizing force were enacted by the Security Council,
or if such a Resolution were passed by a majority of the Council and a
single permanent member "unreasonably" vetoed it. Of course, that's
not what's happened...
Minister to make N Korea visit
Minister to make N Korea visit08/31/2004 07:45 AM Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell is set to become the first
British minister to visit North Korea.
Minister challenges public sector to grow investment in information R&D
The CIO for Philadelphia, Dianah Neff, says
'It's a technology whose time is here.' Other cities have announced
similar plans but none as comprehensive as Philadelphia. Lev Gonick,
chief information officer at Case Western Reserve University, which is
spearheading a WiFi project in Cleveland said, 'We like to say it
should be like the air you breathe - free and available everywhere. We
look at this like PBS or NPR. It should be a public resource.' " [patrickWeb]
The
Public Library of Science (PLoS) is a non-profit organization of
scientists and physicians committed to making the world's scientific
and medical literature a freely available public resource. The
internet and electronic publishing enable the creation of public
libraries of science containing the full text and data of any
published research article, available free of charge to anyone,
anywhere in the world.
Immediate unrestricted access to
scientific ideas, methods, results, and conclusions will speed the
progress of science and medicine, and will more directly bring the
benefits of research to the public. To realize this potential, a new
business model for scientific publishing is required that treats the
costs of publication as the final integral step of the funding of a
research project. To demonstrate that this publishing model will be
successful for the publication of the very best research, PLoS will
publish its own journals. PLoS Biology launched its first issue on
October 13, 2003, in print and online. PLoS Medicine will follow in
2004.
PLoS is working with scientists, their societies,
funding agencies, and other publishers to pursue our broader goal of
ensuring an open-access home for every published article and to
develop tools to make the literature useful to scientists and the
public. This will be added to Academic Resources
2004-05 Internet MiniGuide.
R. Crumb at the New York Public Library04/18/2005 06:24 PM David Pescovitz:
Comic artist extraordinaire R. Crumb's memoir was published his month.
His only US public appearance to promote the book was last week at the
New York Public Library. He was interviewed on stage by art critic
Robert Hughes who previously compared Crumb to Bruegel and Goya. I
can't wait to read The R. Crumb Handbook! From the New York
Times:
"I want everyone to love me," he said, half-mockingly, after
explaining that he was once shocked to learn that the racial
stereotypes and violence toward women he portrayed in his work were
hurtful to many people. "Please love me," Mr. Crumb added.
A woman in the audience then shouted, "We love you!," and Mr. Crumb
held up his hands, cringing, to stop the applause.
"O.K., you love me," he responded, laughing. "You're killing me, you
love me so much. You're choking me. Now back off."
NYPL: Style Guide: Need to
come up with HTML and CSS coding standards for your company? You
could do a lot worse than this resource — a set of well-written,
easy-to-understand guides from the New
York Public Library.
There is a wealth of information available at the public library for
personal investors. Information comes in a variety of formats,
including reference books, circulating books, periodicals,
newsletters, loose-leaf services, CD-Roms, electronic databases, and
Internet sites. This has been added to Financial Resources
Subject Tracer™ Information Blog.
New York Public Library Offers Free Wi-Fi
New York Public Library Offers Free Wi-Fi01/16/2004 11:01 AM Fifty-three libraries in the Bronx and Manhattan will offer free Wi-Fi
access: The libraries will provide filtered Internet access and
full-text searching on the database they've licensed. Alert librarian
Jenny Levine notes that the service filtered but the library's initial
disclosure is inadequate....
The Next Best Thing to Visiting the New Seattle Public Library
"Nokia, Samsung, and Siemens have teamed up with big names in
printers to ensure that printing from mobile phones becomes as easy as
desktop printing.
The Mobile Imaging and Printing Consortium (MIPC) today announced
that mobile handset makers Nokia, Samsung, and Siemens have become
strategic members of the consortium. MIPC is an industry group founded
by Canon, Epson, and HP to drive solutions and implementation
guidelines for providing users with easy to use mobile printing of
pictures taken with camera phones.
MIPC expects to have their first set of printing guidelines
available during the second half of 2004. Existing connectivity
technology standards and solutions such as Bluetooth wireless
technology, printing from memory cards and PictBridge will be the
underlying connectivity platforms for the consortium's work. What if
any licensing conditions there will be for the consortium's guidelines
is unclear.
According to research firm InfoTrends, camera phone users will
print over five billion images in 2004. That number is expected to
grow to 37.2 billion printed pictures in 2008, when, InfoTrend
predicts, 85% of all mobile phones sold will include an embedded
camera." [infoSync
World]
In case you're not familiar with how Illinois is divided
into regional library
systems, here's a quick overview. There are 13 of them
covering the entire State, although it will soon be down to
nine this summer due to two mergers currently underway. I
work at the Suburban Library
System, which is the consortial headquarters for academic, public,
school, and special libraries in Chicago's south suburbs. (We're
currently investigating merging with Chicago Multi-type Library
System.) The Systems do a lot of behind-the-scenes work that helps
make Illinois libraries as great as they are, facilitating shared
catalogs, delivery, interlibrary loan, reciprocal borrowing,
technology initiatives, group purchases, grants, and more.
The shared catalogs of the Systems held a grand total of
43,665,833 holdings last year. In fact, Illinois libraries own an
average of more than 9 items for every household in
Illinois.
Those shared catalogs circulated 42,121,007 items last year, with
Illinois residents checking out more than 80 items per
minute!
There's a great chart on the back page that breaks down the costs
and values of just a few of the System services, which comes out to a
total value of $295,288,397. Of course, that's not even remotely,
nearly, even-on-this-planet close to the amount of funding
we receive.
Here's what I consider to be the kicker, though. "For every dollar
the State spent on cooperative library systems in FY2003, the citizens
of Illinois received $14 in services, a 14 to 1 return on
investment."
Yo, Rod - give library systems that money and get a 14 to 1 return
on your investment! Do the math and fund our libraries, for the good
of every Illinois resident!
How Do We Make Library Resources Searchable in Outlook?
"From the article, 'Today Plaxo integrates Yahoo's search engine
directly into the Outlook e-mail program. Under the deal with Yahoo,
Plaxo will get paid for channeling people to Yahoo's search engine.
The search box will be placed beside a Plaxo icon that sits atop
Outlook. Plaxo will eventually make Web searching possible from
individual e-mails, according to Masonis. Ultimately, he wants Plaxo
to search individual words within the e-mails. You would click on the
word and Plaxo would do a Web search through Yahoo.' Thanks to Searchblog for the tip. J.B.
also comments
on the deal." [ResourceShelf]
And the reason we can't integrate into Outlook searches of local
library catalogs, library-subsidized databases, or library web sites
is what?
Large HMO to Make Treatment Guidelines Public01/24/2003 12:10 AM I would feel much more comfortable following guidelines developed by
Kaiser than taking the luck of the draw on what I'd find through a
Google search on the ...
Funrungames make their funrunserver protocol public
Funrungames make their funrunserver protocol public08/10/2004 03:50 AM Game developers get the opportunity to create the largest multiplayer
game for mobiles by using the funrunserver technology. [PRWEB Aug 10,
2004]
New York Public Library to Sell Major Artworks to Raise Funds
New York Public Library to Sell Major Artworks to Raise Funds04/10/2005 09:35 PM The New York Public Library has decided to sell 19 works of art from
its collection so that it can better compete in acquisitions of
important books and collections.
Burst.com attorney seeks to make Gates deposition public
Primary Research Group has Released a New Study: Best Practices of Public Library Information Technology Directors, ISBN: 1-57440-073-8
Primary Research Group has Released a New Study: Best Practices of Public Library Information Technology Directors, ISBN: 1-57440-073-803/14/2005 04:40 PM This special report from Primary Research Group is based on exhaustive
interviews with information technology directors and other critical
staff involved in IT decision-making from the Princeton Public
Library, Minneapolis Public Library, Evansville Public Library, Santa
Monica Public Library, Boston Public Library, Columbus Metropolitan
Public Library, San Francisco Public Library, Seattle Public Library,
and the Denver Public Library. [PRWEB Mar 14, 2005]
"RipDigital is a bulk CD-ripping operation: send them your CD library and they'll ship your library back in MP3 format"
Chicago's public sculpture can't be photographed by the public
Chicago's public sculpture can't be photographed by the public02/07/2005 02:07 AM Cory Doctorow:
Chicago spent $270 million on its Millennium Park, placing a big
public sculpture by Anish Kapoor in the middle of it, bought with
public money. Woe betide any member of the public who tries to
photograph this sculpture, though: it's a copyrighted
sculpture and Chicago is spending even more money policing
Chicagoans who try to photograph it and make a record of what their
tax-dollars bought.
If I were them, I'd ask for my money back. What kind of jerk sculptor
sells the city a piece of public art for a public park and then
demands that no one take pictures of it? Christ, they should run this
guy out of town on a rail and melt the goddamned sculpture down for
scrap. Then they should fire the politician who signed a purchase
contract that reserved the photographic rights and run him out of town
on the same rail. Between the artist's greed and the procurement
officer's malfeasance, this is about the vilest display of human
venality I've heard of all day.
The copyrights for the enhancements in Millennium Park are owned by
the artist who created them. As such, anyone reproducing the works,
especially for commercial purposes, needs the permission of that
artist.
How to Become a Hotspot Guide04/23/2004 08:23 PM Looking to become a hotspot? Jiwire has published an in-depth guide:
There's no question we get more frequently at Wi-Fi Networking News
than from individual venues or small chains of locations that want to
install Wi-Fi service but don't know quite how to start or how to
evaluate offerings. This Jiwire piece offers very specific advice and
direction on making primary decisions--free or fee? on your own or in
a network? turnkey or solutions provider?--and then who to turn to....
SBC is Hotspot Hero?
SBC is Hotspot Hero?07/26/2004 12:37 PM They're late to the game, but they're ready to party: It's a funny
thing. When SBC Communications first announced their FreedomLink plans
last year with plans build 6,000 hotspots over a couple of years, it
seemed like yet another announcement of large numbers with no track
record. Cometa was still on its 20,000 hotspots prediction and had
only a handful. McDonald's hadn't decided its partner and was in
limited trials. Wayport seemed stuck on hotels. And T-Mobile stayed
focused--as it still does--on a few ubiquitous chains. In the space of
a few months, SBC has moved from last man in, to practically first
mover. Let's review: The UPS Store. They will install Wi-Fi in
thousands of UPS Store outlets, which are places that business people
already congregate. This will probably also necessitate a change of
thinking for that mailing and business operation so that they can make
it easier for people to work for periods of time in their stores.
Wayport managed services. They hired Wayport to build out their
FreedomLink locations instead of creating a new division with no
experience in house. Wayport's Wi-Fi World and McDonald's. They're the
first telco to sign up to resell Wayport's McDonald's network, which
will ultimately be several thousand stores over the next couple of
years. Wayport/McDonald's supplier. They're also providing DSL and
other connectivity to many of the McDonald's that Wayport is
disconnected, which is part revenue, part branding for them as part of
the Wi-Fi World co-marketing model Wayport is pursuing. Airports,
airports, airports. They have roaming agreements now for their
FreedomLink users onto Concourse, Wise, Wayport, and (reportedly)
Sprint PCS's airport locations. There are only a handful of major
airports not represented by those networks: SFO and Boston Logan are
the two that come to mind. Pushing Wi-Fi into homes. SBC is selling
3,000 Wi-Fi routers a day to their home DSL users. This will drive
adoption by their users of Wi-Fi. People without Wi-Fi will buy
adapters or new systems because of the ease of sharing. Pushing
hotspots subscriptions to their DSL subscribers. It's a coming, and
it's going to be good--SBC keeps saying in its press releases that
they will offer FreedomLink at a substantial discount to their DSL
subscribers. $10 per month for unlimited use? $8? $15? Who knows. But
it's an audience they've already got and they can offer them
nationwide service with several thousand locations...
Hotspot Helper
Hotspot Helper01/16/2004 11:01 AM MediaTracker is offering a low-cost way for venues to manage their
hotspots: The management software, ControlAP, costs $149 and can
support several platforms and both external APs plugged into a
computer or an internal wireless card. Because the software is Java
based, it can be run from a handheld with a wireless card. "It's a
do-it-yourself mechanism to control hotspots," said Dario Laverde,
MediaTracker's founder. "The initial target is cafes and small store
fronts." The software enables a captive portal Web page where end
users can sign in or see a welcome page if the hot spot is free. For
now, a cafe may decide to offer 30 minutes of free use, then require
customers to approach the counter where they pay the barista for
additional use. A cafe could also ask customers to buy another coffee
in exchange for additional use rather than set a price based on time,
Laverde suggested. An employee authorizes additional use from a
computer behind the counter where the ControlAP software can be
integrated with existing point-of-sale software. The next version of
ControlAP will support credit card billing. The software logs traffic
and allows a cafe to block URLs or users by MAC address. It can be
used to manage wired connections, too, so a cafe that may have some
wired computers available for customers can manage those together with
users of the Wi-Fi network from the same tool. Laverde says that
thousands of people have downloaded the free version of the software,
which is meant to serve as a trial version because it limits
simultaneous users to five and offers stripped-down features. The full
version of the software was just introduced this week. MediaTracker
isn't alone in the market chasing independent cafes that don't want to
partner with any of the larger hotspot operators, but it does offer
some unique differences from its competitors. Surf and Sip, for
example, offers a hosted hotspot management solution that either costs
$50 per month if the hotspot is free for users, or 25 percent of
profits for a paid location. Sputnik offers a robust solution for
managing hotspots but is designed for the small to medium-sized
hotspot operator that has multiple locations. AirPath Wireless also
offers a hotspot management solution but seems to be targeting larger
hot spot operators--Sprint uses AirPath's solution. NoCatAuth is also
an option but appropriate mostly for technical folks....
A Hotspot on Every Corner
A Hotspot on Every Corner07/29/2004 08:25 PM Details are sketchy, but New York City may allow six telecom firms to
pay up to $25 million per year to install wireless transmitters on
18,000 lamp posts: The article is full of sturm und drang about health
effects, but the real story is that the city is trying to counter its
dead zones without tearing up the streets. It's unclear precisely what
kind of transmitters these will be, but you can bet your boppy that
the goal will be wireless backhaul for the majority of the points
using mesh or simple point-to-point. This endeavor could bring
massively improved voice, 2.5G/3G cell data, and Wi-Fi into a city
without ripping up all the roads once again or putting giant cell
antennas on every last building. The companies include well-known and
never-heard-of-'em: the New York Post says they are two cellular
providers, Nextel and T-Mobile, three non-cellular companies,
ClearLinx Network Corp., Crown Castle Solutions, and Dianet
Communications. The sixth, IDT Business Services, will provide
telephone service via the Internet. [link via GigaOm]... Grok Description matches for e-Minister will make every public library a Wi-Fi hotspot GrokA matches for e-Minister will make every public library a Wi-Fi hotspot
The W3C Technical Architecture Group (TAG) has released a Last
Call Working Draft of the "Architecture of the World Wide Web, First
Edition." The document is written for Web developers, implementers,
content authors and publishers. It describes the properties that are
desired of the Web and the design choices that have been made to
achieve them. Comments are invited through 5 March 2004. Read the
press release and visit the TAG home page.
Last Call: Architecture of the World Wide Web12/09/2003 07:24 PM 2003-12-09: The W3C Technical Architecture Group (TAG) has released a
Last Call Working Draft of the Architecture of the World Wide Web,
First Edition. The document is written for Web developers,
implementers, content authors and publishers. It describes the
properties that are desired of the Web and the design choices that
have been made to achieve them. Comments are invited through 5 March
2004. Visit the TAG home page. (News archive)
geoimages.berkeley.edu/wwp304/index.html track this
site | 5 links
A world wide panorama shoot.
A world wide panorama shoot.04/15/2004 06:28 AM A world
wide panorama shoot. On Saturday, March 20, more than 170
photographers in 39 countries around the world celebrated the Equinox
by creating VR panoramas. This site showcases the results of their
efforts. (Quicktime needed)
news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=477114<
br />track
this site | 4 links
Architectural Principles of the World Wide Web released
Architectural Principles of the World Wide Web released09/03/2002 11:37 AM The W3C has released an initial Working Draft of Architectural
Principles of the World Wide Web, reflecting the work of its Technical
Architecture Group (TAG).
The wide world of Linux word processors
The wide world of Linux word processors12/24/2004 01:11 PM There are several word processors in GNU/Linux, each with different
goals and features. Some are free software, some are based on free
software, some are proprietary. What do you, as an amateur or
professional writer, need to consider in such programs when moving to
GNU/Linux? If you're not entirely satisfied with your current word
processor or if you're wondering what's available on the GNU/Linux
platform in terms of word processors, this article's for you.
Week Ahead: World Wide Summit12/07/2003 09:25 AM World leaders are set to meet in Geneva to discuss control of the
Internet, marking one of several events that will likely catch the
attention of the information technology industry.
Last Call: Character Model for the World Wide Web
Last Call: Character Model for the World Wide Web03/06/2004 01:50 AM 2004-02-25: The Internationalization Working Group has published the
Character Model for the World Wide Web 1.0 in two parts: Fundamentals
in Last Call through 19 March, and Normalization. The documents
address character encoding identification, early uniform
normalization, string identity matching, string indexing, and URI
conventions. They build on the Universal Character Set defined by
Unicode and ISO/IEC 10646. Visit the Internationalization home page.
(News archive)
Working Draft: Architecture of the World Wide Web07/08/2004 10:37 AM 2004-07-05: Addressing a selection of Last Call issues, the W3C
Technical Architecture Group (TAG) has released a updated Working
Draft of the Architecture of the World Wide Web, First Edition. The
document is written for Web developers, implementers, content authors
and publishers. It describes the properties that are desired of the
Web and the design choices that have been made to achieve them. Visit
the TAG home page. (News archive)
Creating the World in Four Schooldays
Creating the World in Four Schooldays09/10/2004 03:32 AM Think the world was created in seven days? Some fourth graders in
North Carolina might argue that they’ve done it only four! The ‘world’
these students created was actually a giant-sized puzzle made from 60
Conceptis Link-a-Pix puzzles which the kids solved, colored, and
pieced together. [PRWEB Sep 10, 2004]
'Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One' is a W3C Recommendation
'Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One' is a W3C Recommendation12/19/2004 03:26 PM 2004-12-15: The World Wide Web Consortium today released Architecture
of the World Wide Web, Volume One as a W3C Recommendation. The Web
uses relatively simple technologies with sufficient scalability,
efficiency and utility that they have resulted in a remarkable
information space of interrelated resources, growing across languages,
cultures and media. This architecture document discusses the core
design components of the Web in an effort to preserve these properties
of the information space as its technologies evolve. Read the press
release, Member testimonials, and visit the TAG home page. (News
archive)
Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One' Is a W3C Recommendation
The World Wide Web Consortium released "Architecture of
the World Wide Web, Volume One" as a W3C Recommendation. The Web uses
relatively simple technologies with sufficient scalability, efficiency
and utility that they have resulted in a remarkable information space
of interrelated resources, growing across languages, cultures and
media. This architecture document discusses the core design components
of the Web in an effort to preserve these properties of the
information space as its technologies evolve. Read the press release,
Member testimonials, and visit the TAG home page.
e-Minister will make every public library a Wi-Fi hotspot
The following phrases have been identified by the grok system as matching this entry: "the man credited with creating the world wide web is not too keen on some domain name ideas"
"I want everyone to love me," he said, half-mockingly, after
explaining that he was once shocked to learn that the racial
stereotypes and violence toward women he portrayed in his work were
hurtful to many people. "Please love me," Mr. Crumb added.