web 2.0

I could (possibly) work this out myself, but I'll try you lot instead: anyone know how to combine two GPS tracks onto one map? I mean tracks as stored on Garmin's website, and displayed like http://connect.garmin.com/activity/127111491. Specifically, I'd like to combine that track with this one. The tracks are both public, so you don't have to assume any authentication is needed. Update: thanks for the advice. In the end I didn't bother with any of the fancy software and just used vim which did a perfectly good job of sticking two GPS files together. It would be nice to colour the tracks…
I have a whole pile of science-y book reviews on two of my older blogs, here and here. Both of those blogs have now been largely superseded by or merged into this one. So I'm going to be slowly moving the relevant reviews over here. I'll mostly be doing the posts one or two per weekend and I'll occasionally be merging two or more shorter reviews into one post here. This one, of Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder, is from August 14, 2007. (Weinberger left a detailed comment at the original post, for those that are interested.) ======= David Weinberger's…
I have a whole pile of science-y book reviews on two of my older blogs, here and here. Both of those blogs have now been largely superseded by or merged into this one. So I'm going to be slowly moving the relevant reviews over here. I'll mostly be doing the posts one or two per weekend and I'll occasionally be merging two or more shorter reviews into one post here. This one, of Sharing, Privacy and Trust in a Networked World, is from November 19, 2011. ======= OCLC's newest state of the library world/environmental scan report was published a few months ago: Sharing, Privacy and Trust in a…
I'm not usually a big fan of Seth Godin's guruish pronouncements, but I thought this one was a pretty good encapsulation of what it means to be a public professional or a public academic in the 21st century. In other words, Why bother having a resume? If you don't have a resume, what do you have? How about three extraordinary letters of recommendation from people the employer knows or respects? Or a sophisticated project they can see or touch? Or a reputation that precedes you? Or a blog that is so compelling and insightful that they have no choice but to follow up? And we shouldn't kid…
Welcome to the latest instalment in my occasional series of interviews with people in the world of higher education and scholarly publishing. This time around it's a bit different with the circumstances being a little unusual. Last week I did a back-of-the-envelope tweet about the Twitter habits of senior academic administrators and my experiences creating a list of those administrators. The uses of social networks in education is an area that really interests me and the habits of those senior administrators was something I'd been wondering about. Well, my old blogging buddy Stephanie…
I have a whole pile of science-y book reviews on two of my older blogs, here and here. Both of those blogs have now been largely superseded by or merged into this one. So I'm going to be slowly moving the relevant reviews over here. I'll mostly be doing the posts one or two per weekend and I'll occasionally be merging two or more shorter reviews into one post here. This one, of Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, is from May 18, 2008. ======= It seems that at least half the time I mention this book to someone interested in the way the web is changing social patterns the…
I have a whole pile of science-y book reviews on two of my older blogs, here and here. Both of those blogs have now been largely superseded by or merged into this one. So I'm going to be slowly moving the relevant reviews over here. I'll mostly be doing the posts one or two per weekend and I'll occasionally be merging two or more shorter reviews into one post here. This one, of The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google, is from June 22, 2008. ======= This is a book with a profoundly split personality. It's like two books warring in the bosom of one volume. It's a bit…
I have a whole pile of science-y book reviews on two of my older blogs, here and here. Both of those blogs have now been largely superseded by or merged into this one. So I'm going to be slowly moving the relevant reviews over here. I'll mostly be doing the posts one or two per weekend and I'll occasionally be merging two or more shorter reviews into one post here. This one, of Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, is from January 23, 2009. ======= The first wave of social media books, like Wikinomics or even Here Comes Everybody, were of the "what the heck is…
The kind librarians at Brock University in St. Catherines, Ontario have invited me to help them celebrate Open Access Week! Their rather impressive lineup of OA Week events (and I'm not just saying this because I'm involved, believe me) is here. My part is a talk I'm giving on Wednesday: Wednesday, October 20 2-3:30 Exploring Open Science Join John Dupuis, Head of the Steacie Science & Engineering Library, York University, for a discussion of how Science and Technology academics and publishers are responding to the growing open access movement and the changing nature of research in…
This is one of those books that I just seemed to argue with constantly while I was reading it. You know, "Hey, you, book, you're just plain wrong about this!" But, as much as I argued with it, as much as I wanted all of the main points to be wrong, as much as I disagreed with many of the details, by the end I grudgingly accepted that Chris Anderson's Free: The Future of a Radical Price might just have a few very valid things to say about the way the economics of online content is evolving. This is the Google generation, and they're grown up online simply assuming that everythng digital is…
I'm away for a couple of days, so I thought I'd fill in a bit with an oldy-buy-goody from February 4, 2009. It ended up being the first of three parts, with the other two being here and here. As usual, the first part got the most readers and comments, with the two after that being decidedly less popular. Go figure. ============================== I was just going to call this post "On Blogging" but I decided I like Robert Scoble's rather provocative statement better. This is not to say that I agree with his rather extreme stance, because I definitely don't, but I think it's an…
Horror author Cherie Priest has a very nice post from a couple of days ago called Control. It's basically about what mass market fiction authors do and don't have control over in the book production process. Now, the mass market fiction publishing niche is hardly the main concern on this blog, but I also think it's interesting to see what she comes up with and compare it with the list of things academic authors both do and don't have control over. On some points it's strangely the same but mostly starkly different. It's also worth contemplating how this list would be affected by an…
I was chatting with a colleague during the long commute home the other day and he noticed I was reading this book. "What's it like?" he asked. "Clay Shirky lite," I replied. And that's about right. In Six Pixels of Separation, Mitch Joel comes to grips with the effects of social media on marketing, media, sales and promotions, he covers a lot of the same ground as in Clay Shirky's classic Here Comes Everybody (review). Glib, conversational, fast-paced bite-sized -- an easy read for sure -- Joel does a solid job of translating Shirky's more scholarly approach to a business audience. Which…
Or not. You can also feel free to subscribe. Or not. Yes, my library has entered the Twitter age. I'll probably be the main tweeter but hopefully a couple of the other reference staff here will chip (chirp?) in from time to time. It took me a while to decide whether or not it's worth it to join Twitter. When I do IL classes, I often poll the class informally to see who uses which of the various social networking software sites. Facebook is around 90%. Twitter is around 5-10%, although somewhat more than 50% seem to have at least heard of it. So, it's a fairly small percentage of…
During my winter blogging break, I thought I'd repost of few of my "greatest hits" from my old blog, just so you all wouldn't miss me so much. This one is from September 24, 2007. This post follows up on my initial 2007 post which I reposted yesterday. It's worth noting that the blog has evolved such that it's hardly about or for engineering or computer science students at all; it's more for the sessions I do for "science for non-science students" courses. Also, the use of Meebo has been a huge hit for me, really creating a new way for me to interact with students. ===== Way back in…
During my winter blogging break, I thought I'd repost of few of my "greatest hits" from my old blog, just so you all wouldn't miss me so much. This one is from September 24, 2007. It's my initial thoughts about the blog I've been using to post my IL session notes. It's worth noting that the blog has evolved such that it's hardly about or for engineering or computer science students at all; it's more for the sessions I do for "science for non-science students" courses. Also, the use of Meebo has been a huge hit for me, really creating a new way for me to interact with students. I'll be re-…
Or, Twitter & blogs as ways of knowing, Part 2. A month or so ago, I poked a little gentle fun at social media extremists, basically exploring the idea that engaging online is the be-all and end-all of the library profession versus the idea that much of what we do online is peripheral to the main thrust of what librarianship is all about. To a certain degree, I guess I was setting up a couple of straw people just for the purpose of knocking them down but at the time it seemed like contrasting those extremes was a useful way of looking at the issue. Of course, I don't believe either…
Sort of related to my ongoing series of Best Science Books 2009 lists, here's a nice list of the top 5 social media books I found on Mashable, via Tara Hunt. They're all 2009 books, after all. The list is from Steve Cunningham who interestingly frames the five books in terms of the lessons we should take away from them. You Need to Build Trust: Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith Turn the Bullhorn Around: The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business by Tara Hunt Learn the Pillars…
As I mentioned in my previous post, I did a little Q&A about the new outsourcing arrangement that CISTI has negotiated with Infotrieve. Q1. What's the effect on jobs at CISTI from this move? As you may know, NRC-CISTI is transforming itself to be well positioned to serve the needs of Canadian knowledge workers now and in the future. This transformation is a major undertaking for the organization and will require a significant transition for NRC-CISTI's workforce. NRC is working to mitigate the effect on employees by seeking to place as many of the affected employees as possible within…
The IEEE Computer Society's magazine IT Professional has a special issue on Ontologies, OWL, and the Semantic Web (v11i5). There's lots of very cool-looking stuff, mostly pretty basic. Guest Editor's Introduction: Ontologies, OWL, and the Semantic Web by Jepsen, Thomas C. Semantic Web Technologies: Ready for Adoption? by Janev, Valentina; Vranes, Sanja Equal Format Databases and Semantic-Relational Encoding by Keith, Dean Just What Is an Ontology, Anyway? by Jepsen, Thomas C.A couple of other non-semantic web articles that look worth checking out: Joining the Conversation about IT Ethics by…