strondes

I only missed one Windows application when I made the switch exclusively to Linux last year: Launchy. Similar to Quicksilver on a Mac, Launchy allows users to accomplish many simple tasks by using only the keyboard. While working on a Windows machine, I found Launchy invaluable for not only launching applications, but also accessing buried network directories, documents, and initiating Web searches. Since switching to Linux, I have tried several clones, namely GnomeDo and Katapult, but none of them were as easy to configure or use as Launchy. This is a happy day, indeed, as a Linux port of Launchy was released this week. I can now launch applications, open directories, perform searches on various Web sites (Wikipedia, Google, Dictionary, Weather, et al.), and more. I encourage you to install Launchy and delete all your desktop shortcuts. You will be amazed by how much time is saved by using a tool like this.

The ALA has provided 3 videos from their 2008 annual conference concerning privacy. The one below is of Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother. Follow the link for the others. I cannot recommend them highly enough.

Link

Digital preservation is a hot topic among Information Professionals as the methods of preserving and retrieving artifacts become more complex. The biggest long-term fear, of course, is that the software currently used to decode and view an artifact may become obsolete, thus nullifying any attempt to view a document or photograph in the future. It is more important now than ever that digital archival standards be implemented internationally and redundant artifact storage made the norm. The latest episode of Innovation Insider features an in depth interview with Michael A. Keller, University Librarian and Director of Academic Information Resources at Stanford University, concerning the future of digital archiving and information preservation. I highly recommend it.

Link to audio.

Bytes.com has a great introduction to database normalization that aspiring database analysts/DBAs may find useful. It follows one example from 1NF to the normalized 3NF and BCNF structures and includes accompanying charts.

Go forth and normalize.

Link

I attended a private school for my secondary education, and it is in the classrooms of this supposedly unbiased, spiritually-charged institution where I first encountered censorship. At the time, I thought nothing of it - I even embraced and participated in it. The teacher knows best, right? Upon reflection, knowing what I know now, I find this activity to be pervasive, dangerous, and squelching of critical thought among most students today, whether they attend public or private institutions. I do not intend for this post to be a thorough analysis of my personal views of censorship, but rather a call for change.

I can understand eliminating supposed pornographic or non-literary items from the curriculum, but I will never understand editing the classics simply because some words may be offensive to some readers. I sat in the classroom just like any normal day, and I was handed by my teacher a black magic marker. Copies of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde were then distributed, and we were given a list of words deemed offensive by either my teacher or the administration. “Damned” and “hell” were among the offensive words. As the entire class read page by page, round-robin around the room, we were instructed to cross out any of the “offensive” words that we encountered with the magic marker.

Looking back, this activity had 2 different effects on the students who were forced to participate in this inexcusable activity. First, censorship draws attention, warranted or not, to the text being censored. I would not have had a second thought about the words were were blacking out if not instructed to search for them.

Secondly, censoring any text simply to accommodate a certain variety of person gives the reader a false sense of the literary world and demeans the value of literature that we should be fighting to protect. I guarantee that several of my classmates to this day still cringe when they see an “offensive” word and reach for their magic marker - perhaps while even reading Marlowe, Shakespeare, or J.K Rowling. Students of this sort cannot survive in college, let alone the real world. All text has merit, and we should have a thick enough skin to step outside of the text and evaluate it critically. The reader does not have to like a text in order to appreciate its worth.

We must understand that the words themselves have no meaning, they are just ink on white paper that is bound into what we agree to address as a “book.” It is the meaning that we assign to the words that generates a personal reaction and triggers our natural instinct to question, enjoy, and critically discuss a work, literary or not. We do not have to agree with our interpreted meaning, we simply have to have an open mind to viewpoints that may be differing from our own.