The 6th incarnation of Elmer's blog
GROKLAW
“One sweet day I’d like to do a Knoppix distro specialized for lawyers and law students. I would like to do it today, but there are some missing pieces.”
…but she doesn’t know it yet. CALIoppix, a special version of Knoppix for CALi members could easily do what she is thinking about. And it isn’t that hard.
Apple to ditch IBM, switch to Intel chips | CNET News.com
“Apple Computer plans to announce Monday that it’s scrapping its partnership with IBM and switching its computers to Intel’s microprocessors, CNET News.com has learned.“
If this is true, it is huge. The big question, as noted in the article, is whether or not Apple will permiot its operating system to run on any other manfacturer’s boxes. To put a finer point on it: Will Apple decide to compete directly with Microsoft in the operating system space? Note of irony: the Microsoft Xbox 360 will use the latest PowerPC design from IBM for its processor.
Intellectual Property Institute Launches the National CyberEducation Project
“The University of Richmond Intellectual Property Institute announces the launch of the National CyberEducation Project, an interdisciplinary, grass-roots effort to engage students, faculty, and administrators on college campuses in discussion of contemporary intellectual property issues. Because debates over the intellectual property issues that arise in the digital age often appear to reflect a new generation gap, the Project focuses on educational efforts that work to bridge that gap. It will produce conferences, articles, blogs, education kits, and other student-oriented, campus-centric programs and materials.“
Sounds like they could use CALI Author to create some materials that could be accessed over the web by anyone.
BetaNews | Google Testing New Indexing Approach
“Since its inception, Google has tried to make sense of billions of Web documents and using advanced in-house technology. But now, Google is experimenting with a new concept to better its search crawlers: ask webmasters for help. The program, called Google Sitemaps, could revolutionize how the Web is indexed.Specifically, Sitemaps will direct Google’s Web crawlers to content that has been changed or added, removing the need for Google to spider an entire site. Sitemap files are based on XML and contain a number of parameters to aid in the search indexing process.“
The Google Sitemaps FAQ is here.
Microsoft to Roll Out Windows 2000 Update Rollup
“Microsoft Corp. plans to announce as early as next week that it is ready to ship a Windows 2000 Update Rollup, the final security patch for the 5-year-old operating system.The Update Rollup, which replaces Windows 2000 SP5 (Service Pack 5), is a cumulative set of hot fixes, security patches and critical updates packaged together for easy deployment.“
Bonnie Shucha @ Univ of Wisconsin Law Library has compiled a list of law library and law library related blogs. The list has 52 entries. The number of blogs was a happy surprise to me. Great job Bonnie!
Note to self: figure out how to aggregate all of those feeds…
Main Page – Fedora Directory Server
“Welcome to the Fedora Directory Server. The Fedora Directory Server is a robust, scalable open-source server designed to manage large directories of users and resources. It is based on an open-systems server protocol called the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP).“
This could be used in place of commercial products like Microsoft Active Directory and Novell eDirectory. It is enterprise grade stuff, so it isn’t for the ‘I need an addressbook’ OpenLDAP crowd.
Slashdot | Blogging For Paychecks
“When you hear about blogging, you’re most likely to hear about personal journals, self-expression and youngsters sharing their daily routines online. However, as Wall Street Journal notes, the word blogger can now frequently be seen in corporate job ads. Blogging jobs pay anywhere from $40,000 to $70,000 and frequently require writing copy for corporate Web sites and ability to promote on the Internet. A search for blogger and blogging on one of the job meta search engines yields several hundred open positions.“
Wherein the ‘blogger’ becomes yet another corporate flak. Corps are waking up to the fact that the tools for blogging are easy to use and provide a sort of instant ‘in’ that allows them access to a lot of eyeballs that other wise might be missed. Sooner or later Google will quit adding so much weight to blogs or get better at filtering amatuers from pros and the salaries will go down.
Outgoing: WorldCat Wiki
“The idea is to have a Wiki that complements WorldCat. People could add reviews, cover art, comments, etc. and relate these to bibliographic records (maybe at the FRBR work-level too). We hope the system is flexible enough so that people do (good) things we’re not expecting. We’d like the Wiki to be available anywhere WorldCat records are.“
Picked this up via Library Stuff. Sounds like a great idea. Something to keep in mind for my FoLL article.
Wired News: Watch for Roadcasting Rage
“Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are developing an ad hoc networking system for cars that would allow any driver to broadcast music to any other vehicle within a 30-mile radius.“
Hmm, neat concept. I think Cory Doctorow came up with it in “Eastern Standard Tribe“, at least that’s where I ran across it. He even notes, back in October 2004, that enterprising iPodders where starting to do this sort of thing. Anyhow, I think it’s cool and I hope Cory gets the credit.