Copyright, RSS, & more

Apparently today is copyright day…

Given that I use RSS feeds to pull my content into other sites (facebook, my portfolio, etc.), I sometimes get caught up in the ease of use and forget that RSS is a really a form of syndication.

Hmm… today I came across this interesting post via my google reader: a brief discussion of some of the issues surrounding copyright and RSS.

So, if I don’t allow sharing of my images in my image gallery, but then I crosspost them via RSS, I should probably make sure I have a copyright statement in the feed, too(?) I do allow some selected image usage licensed under creative commons for some of my work at flickr (images which do not live in my image gallery). Sigh, it’s all very complicated.

On the other hand (and in another mailbox), I received a link to the nifty copyright slider, i.e., a online tool to check the potential copyright clearance needed…and really, if you are still confused about creative commons, may I suggest this (again):

Learn a new language with Babbel (not babelfish)

I think this sounds like a really interesting way to learn a language — social networking & multimedia style! Mashable has a good overview & review here:

Babbel is the latest site to teach new languages through a social Web-based immersion program, where the majority of the content is packaged into lessons created by Babbel. So far, languages such as Spanish, French, Italian, English, and German are supported. Each lesson package contains material pertaining to a different theme, such as travel or business, so you can learn a series of words and phrases within context.

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Although I do like that the information is presented in multiple ways as it SHOUlD create a richer learning environment appealing to a variety of learning styles, I didn’t find a lot in the way supporting documentation, research, etc. on the site. It seems to be all about language and play… but hey if it works (but how will they know?)

I also wonder if they will expand to other languages — seems like kind of a short list, hmm?

New authorities blog

Collocate and Disambiguate: Currents in authority control and authority data, a new blog on authority control. It seems to be off to a good start (and I love the name!)

Build the Open Shelves Classification

Build the Open Shelves Classification

Description: I hereby invite you to join the Open Shelves Classification (OSC), a free, “humble,” modern, open-source, crowd-sourced replacement for the Dewey Decimal System.

—from LibraryThing.

You can follow its progress or contribute to its effort here

Flowchart — new free online flowchart site and I have invites!

So, I volunteered to whip up a little flowchart of a project. It’s fairly straightforward and the critical path is rather obvious. I also think I’m pretty good with flow charts. Not only have I been to lots of project management workshops and classes, but I spent way too much time in a previous position (information/document specialist & blueprint librarian) working with Visio. Somehow, not only the job of managing the organizational chart for a relatively huge division of a global company, but much of record keeping of their project management, had fallen to the IS at some point.

Unfortunately (or perhaps, fortunately!) I no longer have Visio to spit out those beautiful interconnected flowcharts and structured org charts. So, in the past, I’ve used Word, Excel, or some other product, when I’ve need to fake a flowchart. Today, in digging around on the net a little, I found a beta test of a new free online flowchart creator, flowchart.com (think you can remember that? LOL). It is not perfect (for one, entering colors by hexcode didn’t seem to work, and the colors are very standard, otherwise) , but whoa! it works otherwise.

So, if you want to try this flowchart site, you can either add your name to the que for an invitation, or you can drop me an email, and I’ll send you an invite. I only have 6 invites left.

Posting to blogger from google docs mostly works

Okay, I’m not sure I see exactly why it would be better to post from googledocs to your blog (especially, if you use blogger and are already logged in via your google login), but here goes:

did you know that you can publish directly to a blog via google docs? http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2008/07/live-blogging-with-docs.html

One caveat, though: scheduling/future posts do not seem to work via this method. Even if you edit the date in blogger, it doesn’t force it to future post.

Google and Librarians — the lovelorn relationship

Well, if you haven’t heard all of the chatter and buzz, Google Librarian Central hadn’t been updated in a year (before today, that is)…and Google wasn’t at ALA leaving some librarians to call out google for punking librarians or even using librarians, while other librarians proclaimed, we weren’t surprised!

While I fall more on the side of “google is a business, google is a corporation” , I do understand a little bit why some people feel, eh, jilted(?).

and really, You can make money without doing evil doesn’t necessarily mean that they will do good. Because some good things are not profitable, ya know?

Golly, it’s the equivalent of a bad soap opera romance — so, where’s the child spawned by the rival (microsoft? yahoo?)

Google reader tips

A few of my favorite shortcut keys in google reader:

s -> Star
j -> Open next
k -> Open previous
r -> refresh
gs -> starred

…and lots more here

Google goes 3D?

Okay, not quite… at least, not yet.

Google has entered yet another space with the launch of Lively, a tool for creating 3D social spaces on Web sites, which is now available in a public beta test.

The platform lets users create and personalize their own character, so-called avatars, and their own rooms, which is nothing new: Second Life does as much. But a key feature of the Lively platform is integration with the regular Internet. Users are able to create a room, and embed it with their web site or blog, writes Niniane Wang, Engineering Manager at Google, on the company blog.

Well, that sounds interesting, although unlike smallworlds, there is still software to be downloaded and installed. I wonder which virtual world will topple SecondLife, though?

Blog? Where did that come from? A short history of net lingo.

Blog, Byte, Cell phone, fractal, computer virus, … Network world gives a brief history of common internet & technology words and phrases…