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AA = CAVU + WIFI - VoIP |
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Today American Airlines will begin testing onboard wifi service on a flight from New York to Los Angeles. If all goes well, the service will be officially launched in a couple of weeks. No content filtering (hmmm) and no voice over Internet (praise God). CAVU? Say, what? C’mon … look it up on the Internet. |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Internet Librarian
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Comments (0)June 18, 2008
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“We’re Sending You Back To The Future!” |
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I feel so Marty McFly. There’s a browser war again, reminiscent of the one we had in the last millennium, previous decade, nineties. This time, it pits Internet Explorer against Firefox (version 3 released yesterday), Opera (version 9.5 released last week), and Apple’s Safari. Microsoft isn’t going to crush these browsers like it did Netscape 15 years ago. The battle isn’t over what you have installed on your desktop anymore. The battlefield has shifted to the Web. (OK, I’m done with the whole military metaphor thing.) Now that Web 2.0 has gained traction, more and more people are living their digital lives on the Web. They’re using Web-based email services rather than Outlook, storing and organizing photos online with Flickr, editing documents with Google Docs or Zoho, and making their schedules universally accessible with Google Calendar. And they’re not even using PCs to do it, thanks to the iPhone. Today’s Christian Science Monitor has an article discussing a lot of this. They peg IE’s market share at 74% (down from like 99.99999999% 5 years ago), with Firefox at 18% and Safari coming in at 6%. (They basically ignored Opera in the article. Yo … what’s up with that?) They also quote Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan: “Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of searchengineland.com, says he’s set up his wife on three different computers recently, two PCs and a Mac, and found that he didn’t need to load any software for her. Everything she wanted to do was available through her browser. She reads her e-mail at Yahoo and finds the rest of her software among Google’s many free online applications, including Google Docs, which allows users to create and share documents and spreadsheets, he says. ‘Her browser was taking care of everything,’ Mr. Sullivan says. She’s actually going online, ‘but if you don’t know any better, you’d think Google Docs is software running [on her own machine].’” I have to concur. Right now, other than the Big 4 browsers, all I have loaded on my laptop is anti-virus/firewall software, some encryption programs I’m testing, and a couple of disk utilities for managing my hard drive. I dumped MS Office. (Ahhhh … what a nice feeling!) I uninstalled OpenOffice — talk about bloatware! — because I never used it. Heck, I don’t even use the Windows calculator anymore now that Google has one. |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Internet Librarian
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June 13, 2008
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The Resource You Are Looking for? Yes … We Have It! |
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Do you know about ALL the Jenkins resources offered to you from your desktop? Many of the resources are published online these days, so to use our budget wisely we provide links to them via Jenkins Automated Catalog, JAC Plus, instead of purchasing paper copies. If you are already familiar with JAC Plus, you might already have seen “Link to”option that offers direct access from our catalog to online Resources in the Web-sphere. To see “Link to” in action click on this record then click on Related Resource , which will take you to the current edition of the Code of Medical Ethics. During the next few months you will see many changes to our catalog as we work on improving our system usability. If you come across a resource that we are missing please send us your suggestions. Your input is very important to us. |
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Submitted by: Katrina Piechnik, Head of Technical Services
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June 12, 2008
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Get Into the Guinness Book of World Records |
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The long-awaited release of Firefox 3 is set for Tuesday, June 17. The folks at Spread Firefox want you to download it on that date to help them set the Guinness World Record for most software downloads in 24 hours. I’ve already set a world software record. Thanks to Microsoft, I’ve got the world record for most consecutive reboots in a 4-hour period while trying to install #$%^*& Internet !%#&$%@ Explorer @%#_&$* version !^#(^#$ 7. OK, I’ve calmed down now … |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Internet Librarian
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May 13, 2008
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Wireless Philadelphia to Become Network-less Philadelphia on June 12 [UPDATED] |
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Today’s Inquirer reports that EarthLink will end wifi service for the troubled Wireless Philadelphia project on June 12. Right now, it doesn’t look like any other company will take over operations — apparently, EarthLink couldn’t even give the network equipment away. But you wouldn’t know that from the latest post on the WP Web site by CEO Greg Goldman, dated May 9: “Wireless Philadelphia and the City of Philadelphia continue to work together to ensure a positive future for Philadelphia’s municipal wireless network and nationally-recognized Digital Inclusion program, the vision of which is to provide all citizens with access to essential technological resources for education, employment, and other life opportunities.” Click here for more background info on Wireless Philadelphia — plus a pretty decent rant – by our own RayAna Park. UPDATE (May 14) — WP now has a statement on their site: “Today we received an announcement that EarthLink intends to discontinue operation of its Municipal Wi-Fi Network in Philadelphia. The reason cited was that negotiations with a certain party failed to come to a positive conclusion. The transfer of the EarthLink network is by definition a complex, time-intensive, multi-party transaction. Despite today’s announcement, Wireless Philadelphia and the City are still working actively together to identify alternatives for preserving this network and applying it to numerous civic, commercial and social purposes. We remain optimistic for an orderly resolution of this matter. Regardless, Wireless Philadelphia is utterly steadfast in its determination to extend internet access to all members of the community, and we intend to do everything in our power to continue the momentum generated by WP in support of Digital Inclusion.” |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Internet Librarian
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April 21, 2008
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Your Country Needs You to Get on the Web and Surf Your Brains Out |
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USA Today reports that, as of February 2008, China (220 million) now has more Internet users than the ol’ US of A (216 million). It was inevitable — China is 4 times bigger than the U.S., population-wise. What’s interesting, however, is the percentage of the Chinese population with Internet access: 17%. You’d have to go back more than a decade to get those numbers for the U.S. But Chinese Internet users were up 53% from 2006 to 2007, so they may approach U.S. adoption levels Google has seen its future, and it isn’t necessarily Mr. or Mrs. Average searching for stuff from their family rooms somewhere in suburban America. It’s millions of surfers from China and a “shocking” number of mobile iPhone users around the world. |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Internet Librarian
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March 10, 2008
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Ban anonymous internet posting in Kentucky??? |
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According to Kentucky Action News:
First of all, I’m ok with anonymous posters as long as it’s not malicious. Secondly, this bill is ridiculous in every aspect and will probably never go into effect. How would they even enforce this? It’s just like trying to enforce age restrictions on accessing certain websites — almost impossible. And how would they be able to tell if a poster uses their real name? As such, there’s no difference between posting anonymously and posting incognito. Some blogs are authored completely anonymously (ie. the Annoyed Librarian) and are meant to be enjoyed that way. I don’t think this Kentucky Representative has any idea what the internet is. I understand that he’s just trying to curb online bullying but it’s quite a utopian goal, wouldn’t you say? Might as well shield our kids from the internet until they’re 19. |
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Submitted by: RayAna Park, Former Web Developer
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March 5, 2008
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Book Publisher Joining the Instant Message Bandwagon |
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I just had the privilege to chat with a sales support specialists for one of our large book publishers. CCH a Wolters Kluwer business, now gives you an option to ask a question or state a concern via instant message. To me, the process was quicker than emailing customer service and more conducive than waiting on the telephone. Thomson West also has this feature for customers to utilize and I am becoming a fan of this technology in the workplace. |
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Submitted by: Nikki Butler, Acquisitions/Serials Coordinator
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March 3, 2008
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Wireless Philadelphia - I knew it wouldn’t last |
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Who’s going to buy up this lost cause? Have they even set up those purported “Eye in the Sky” surveillance cameras yet in an effort to help reduce crime? Let’s face it, the closest thing to cutting edge technology in Philly was probably used in making my Dunkin Donuts coffee this morning. |
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Submitted by: RayAna Park, Former Web Developer
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February 22, 2008
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Half a Billion People Can’t Possibly Be Wrong |
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The Spread Firefox site is reporting that Firefox downloads have broken the 500 million mark. To be precise, as of this very moment we’re talking 500,309,502. Firefox’s browser market share stands at around 17%, a gain of about 2% since last year. By comparison, Internet Explorer (75% of market) has lost about 3% share since this time last year. At this rate, Firefox will catch IE in *only* 11 years. Woo hoo! |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Internet Librarian
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