50 Feet From the Cutting Edge in the Northeast Kansas Library System
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Not yet for the faint of heart, Internet Explorer 7 was released this week. Those of you with hearty constitutions and a penchant for braving the unknown can get it from Microsoft’s website. I’m installing it now and no bad effects yet. Of course, we all know that I’ll use it once every… 2 weeks or so since I use a Mac. 
They claim it’ll have better security and more resistance to spyware. I’ll believe it when I see it (which means I may not ever believe it).
Sorry for the lack of posting… I’ve been busy on a new and fun project! (I won’t abandon you, I promise)
I’ve been saying for months that I’m going to turn the NEKLS Technology website (http://tech.nekls.org) into a Wiki.
Well blast it all I finally got it started and it’s really looking and working great! The Wiki makes an outstanding platform for knowledge base type applications, and so far I’m really happy with it.
We’re using Mediawiki, by the way. (http://www.mediawiki.org)
Any suggestions?
Excellent article on “what is web 2.0″ for those of us who were confused about this new bit of web terminology.
I know we have some library web developers in our midst (they’re quiet ones, those library web developers) so this one is for you guys. It’s a collection of blogs and resources for web 2.0 development. More on web 2.0 later 
Today is the anniversary of the release of Microsoft Windows, that operating system we love to hate.
I remember spending my 16th birthday installing Windows 95 on my 486 with 8MB of RAM. Good times, good times.
Here’s the PC World article commemorating the day:
Twenty Years of Windows
What are some of your love/hate stories about Windows on this most… auspicious(?) day?
And while we’re talking about Windows, let’s also talk about other operating systems that capitalize on that love/hate relationship we have with Windows. Anybody out there using Linux solutions for their library desktops, staff or patron use, with any sort of success? What about Apple/OS X?
For those of you geeky geeks out there, or those interested in content management systems that don’t come at a gigantic cost to your library, check out this site that is a listing AND live trial ground for every product they list.
This means that you can see a Content Management System for the web, look at its features, then TRY IT OUT! The entire site is refreshed every 2 hours, so there’s always a fresh, clean demo to work with for all products.
We’re looking into content management systems for our libraries to ease web development, I think I’ll be spending a lot of time at this site trying out CMS systems.
This is a neat technology that maybe someday will have an application in libraries. The idea is that a person (patron) would, instead of checking out the actual physical media, would use a small card embedded with an RFID tag, that when waved over a special device would retrieve a video or audio presentation over the internet to the users’ home media center for viewing on their television.
I’m sure there will be DRM issues with this, but it looks like a good start to media-less distribution of audio and video for libraries.
No informative links today, no time to look for informative stuff! Here’s a week in the life of your NEKLS tech folks:
Power Outage takes down NEKLS services - emergency action needed to keep all 20 785 KanREN libraries internet up.
Power Outage kills DNS server. Not discovered ’til next day. KanGuard affected. Phone rings off hook.
New DNS server put in place - running whole new version of BIND. Eek!
KanGuard server moved to rack - some interfaces don’t come up (but are not discovered ’til next day) minor emergency ensues.
Public Library hit by lightning, network equipment and automation server affected. No good backups. Perform emergency data recovery on HD from old server and recover automation data. Hooray!
All that in 3 days! Sheesh. I’m ready for the weekend.
A breakthrough for public libraries, these smart little skins fit over your DVD’s and CD’s and keep the actual disk from getting scratched. They’re a little expensive, but I think their protective qualities will save many a DVD from certain doom.
The skins fit over the bottom of the CD or DVD and the discs will still work in any player.
Sounds like a great advancement to me!
Ah spam. Meat in a can. Unsolicited commercial email. Do you get it? Do you want to know how not to? Read this article!
TechSoup - Articles: Using the Internet - Top 20 Ways to Prevent Spam
Man oh man! Tech day was a blast… keep watching here for the next few days to catch some of the Tech Day 2005 excitement… we’ll be posting photos, video of the keynote and some of the sessions, all of the powerpoints from the day, and additional resources for all of your consumption.
I think all of our minds were expanded by Jenny Levine, the Shifted Librarian. There is much to be done for Kansas libraries and blogging/rss/wiki/folksonomy. A world of conversation between our patrons and the library awaits us, all we have to do is harness it. I think that soon we’ll be having a workshop for “introduction to blogger” but you didn’t hear it here.
Remember that you can get ahold of your friendly NEKLS tech staff through MSN messenger (more services coming soon) by adding lrea@nekls.org to your buddy list (we like to hear from you!) or bhough@nekls.org. Send us a friendly message!
We’re also opening up comments on this blog, so we want to hear what you think! Comment! We like it when you do!
Microsoft is going to release the new version of Internet Explorer, Version 7, with it’s new operating system Windows Vista, due out next year. Already computer folks are saying to keep with the Firefox/alternative web browser plan because Internet Explorer will STILL not support most web standards correctly. This means that if you are a web designer or web user, some pages will never look right in Internet Explorer, and developers who develop web pages will have to work even harder to make their pages work across all browsers.
This article outlines the reasons that the computing community (and that includes us) should boycott Internet Explorer 7 until such time as it is fully compliant with web standards.
IE 7.0 Technical Changes Leave Web Developers, Users in the Lurch
Does your library have a technical volunteer? Do they need guidance in setting up computers in a non-corporate, public access environment?
This site is dedicated to helping non-profit technology consultants (or Technology Volunteers) do their job more effectively. Definitely one to keep in your bookmarks.
ConsultantCommons.org (beta) | Sharing Tools for Nonprofit Technology Support
Are you a migrator (always moving your files to the latest platform and format), museum (keeping older machines around to read the files created for them), or a printer (paper can store things in usable form much longer than digital formats)? Perhaps you are relying on the web?
This article talks about the problems associated with digital data, and making sure digital archives are always readable.
NYT requres free registration. Bother.
The New York Times > Technology > Even Digital Memories Can Fade
A great resource… Kansas is coming up with a similar project, but it has not gone productional yet. Watch here for further details.
Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki - Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki
For the geeky geeks out there, an explanation of Open Source Software, and how Linux could dethrone Windows. Unlikely, but a nice intro to Open Source.
Here’s a quick intro to using RSS (really simple syndication) for non-techie librarians. I hope you enjoy the article.
LLRX.com - RSS for Non-Techie Librarians
You can also add the NEKLS Technology weblog to your RSS feeds… In Firefox, look for the little orange and white signal icon in the lower right hand corner, click it, then subscribe. In Internet Explorer you’ll need to get some kind of feed aggregator like http://www.bloglines.com